parade / catharsis
i wish i could remember the moment when i realized i wanted to write about “the old synagogue” — but it must’ve been about a year ago. “the old synagogue” is a place in my neighborhood, an abandoned shul on the corner of le moyne and talman ave. ive done minimal research on the building, but i know it’s owned by the city, it used to be a church called mt. gilead, and then before that it was an orthodox (maybe hasidic?) synagogue called “zemech zedek”. the building was built in 1892. my neighborhood, humboldt park, used to be called “the jewish ghetto” from the turn of the century through the 1940s. these are all facts i can spout out, facts with invisible realities, and the puerto rican diaspora replaced the jewish one in population, and now i am leaving all of this soon, and my three years in this apartment off le moyne street will be a part of my personal past, too.
tonight i took a walk, just heading to the park like i always do. this summer feels so different from the last, like we are all remembering to live. the old synagogue, fenced in and vacant, is lush with overgrown bushes and weeds. the building looks guarded by the leaves, fluffing out green over the red bricks. i look at the side of the shul and always think, “these bricks are so red.” i know i want to look inside the window on the front door again, so i approach the facade, spotting a big rat speeding out of the gap in the concrete step. i lean in, squinting my eyes at the window, which reveals the lobby. i see the doors on the inside which lead to the sanctuary, they have cream-colored curtains on them. i want to open up the fabric and look in there, too, so badly. in the lobby, there’s a lawn mower just sitting there. and on the steps, a glade air freshener. i think of the overgrown greenery and i think of the lawn mower just sitting there. i move on.
it seems like in the summer time in humboldt park, there are puerto rican parades every weekend. instantly, i see the front curvature of the street inside the park congested with cars decorated with puerto rican flags. people and flags are hanging out of the car windows, the car roofs, all summer long. the flags are for sale on the side of the road all summer long. and booths with puerto rican shirts, puerto rican masks, puerto rican towels, everything. in the park, the older people are playing music and dancing and eating food. i see some old dudes trying to unchain a port-a-potty from a tree. the festival summer has arrived.
the sun is setting as i head through the path along both sides of the lagoon. kids are fishing with their parents, and men are fishing alone. the lily pads fill up the water like a veil, a lace pattern. in the park, i just think about my family. i don’t know why, but i always do when i’m here. i wish they were here with me, experiencing what i am experiencing, and looking at the water and the prairie plants and the oriole birds and the people living their lives. i always remember after the solar eclipse in 2017, i asked my mom about what it was like for her. she said her only regret was that she wished we had all been together, watching the eclipse as a family.
further through the park, past more cars with flags, i pass through the baseball fields lit up at night with people playing little games. i pass by cute little kids on scooters, i pass by the food truck by the paved soccer court, and then up by the end of the lagoon, i pass by a strange mass of hipsters dancing. there’s a dj in a white tent playing house music. people are laying around drinking. two girls are squatting and peeing against a tree. the trash can is stuffed with old style boxes. i see a girl i know, i see a bunch of drunk young people. i still don’t know what this event was — like the club moved to the park for a day. i keep going back around the circle of the lagoon, under the bridge and past the boathouse and the swan-shaped paddleboats. the swans are clustered on the sunset-reflected water, like real birds resting, like solemn angels. i take a bunch of cool photos of them.
the sky keeps exploding with fireworks on all sides of me. i wonder when was the last time i enjoyed fireworks outside? last fourth of july, i watched them from my window in my living room. i was scared or bitter or lonely, i did not see any people last summer. and i guess i am still hanging out alone a lot this summer, too. the fireworks become glitter, fizzing from behind the trees. when i stand at the crosswalk on california ave, across from another old synagogue, one of the cars in the big parade cuts through the sidewalk and juts right next to me, speeding onto the street. humboldt park, no rules.
the title of this “blog” is “archival tendencies” because i have a fear of losing my life — this has been a consistent trait of me since i was a little kid, i have always been nostalgic for my life as it’s happening. as i walked through the park at dusk, the lagoon glowing in the purple sunset and the streetlights, the fireworks’ smoke blooming into the trees, and the empty tennis court surrounded by lines of cars with plumes of fabric and people — to be honest, i wished dylan was there with me, filming. it was all so visually beautiful, and auditory, too. how can i capture it all? an old man biked by me then on the sidewalk, with his radio playing an 80’s synth sound. in my eyes, i try to film it, too.
i guess the purpose of this “blog” is purely selfish, and that’s okay because most art has to be in some ways. i had a lot of conversations in MFA about how writing shouldn’t be cathartic, but maybe people just don’t want to admit that it is. maybe people feel that the idea of writing-as-catharsis belittles the fact that writing is also work, not just something we do for personal gains, but something bigger than ourselves. but of course writing is personal. and writing is so spiritual — i get to keep a part of my soul, a translation of it, before this version of me is lost in time. if catharsis is about releasing repressed emotions, then hell yeah writing is cathartic. i release something in me that could not be expressed until now.
maybe the MFA argument was that writing nonfiction cannot be therapy, and sure, that’s true. and i’ve never been to therapy, but someday i will. i think writing about your life is a practice that therapists may recommend, if you are wanting to feel grounded by imagery and facts and feelings. imagery reminds me that i am also just an image. how small we are. the lawnmower is an image that sits inside the image of the synagogue. the image behind the lawnmower, the sanctuary of the turn-of-the-century shul, cannot be seen by me, ever in my life. how small we are. how small. how we are.
