Ms. Quinson\'s Period 5 Blog 2008-09

(after No Speak English and before Rafeala Who Drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays.)

Rosa sits on the tree everyday. Rosa come down from that tree says her mom. But she doesn’t listen. She sees and sees until there is nothing left to see. She breathes in the morning air and closes her eyes until I fall asleep watching. I think she sees more than Mango shows. Up, she goes. Up and up over the sky she goes until Mango is gone.
Little kids cry and men run to work. But Rosa does not see. She stays put in that world away from Mango.

Rosa where’d you go?
I went away
Where is away?
Gone.
But where is gone? Can I come?

And then Rosa is gone.

When she is in school everyone laughs at her. Alone she sits by the soggy napkins. They say Rosa why are you so weird? Rosa you need to be more like us. Stop climbing the tree, you freak. You’ll never get out of here. I hope you fall someday. Your clothes are in that funny brown bag and your shoes are dirty. You’re rope hair needs to be shorter. Let’s cut those snakes. Then come the scissors. Snap. Now they’re lifeless strings on the floor. I want to yell and tell Rosa to look! Rosa, look at your hair! They laughed and laughed and I wanted to help but then I think what happened last time I wanted to help and my throat is dry.

But all the while Rosa’s eyes are somewhere else. Rosa is a statue. She looks far away at something deep. Something important. One time I tried to look in the same direction but saw an empty pickle jar. My breath is caught. Rosa Rosa Rosa. They’re hurting you. Rosa, look. Rosa, don’t you care?

And then I think about what it would be like to not care… to not care about what anyone else thought or said… just to live freely in Mango. She would be happy to let me breathe in her trees and I would be happy to be there. I wish I could talk to Rosa so she could teach me how to climb a tree. Maybe that’s how she does it so well. She escapes. The tree pushes her up with his steady arms, up to somewhere else. Somewhere magic.

Rosa where are you? Can I come? I don’t want to care. The only thing is that I do.

Once Rosa told me to remember the first tree. I thought that in Paulina there wasn’t a tree there was a house. But Rosa whispered to think harder. Trees that have angry roots stay with you longer. They leave a bigger impression. Don’t forget. Rosa, I said. But she was gone.
I thought about Mango. Ugly red house. Tight and frustrated and small but it is my home. It is my tree.

Maybe Rosa has a story to tell. Maybe life wasn’t all roses. There must have been some thorns.

This entry was posted on June 11, 2009 at 1:02 pm and is filed under House on Mango Street.