Sepia-Colored Memories

Julianna Concepcion | Opinion Writer

All my best memories begin in our little apartment on Lebanon Avenue. The bright blue, picket-fenced house was trimmed in white, and the front yard was filled with flowers and tomatoes and herbs. These were all planted by our landlady who lived directly above us in the two-story colonial style “duplex.” My most formative years were spent here; from crawling up the couple of steps it took to get through the door to skipping down them in the summer before middle school. When stepping in, your feet would be met with a landing. There was a door a few feet down to the left, and directly in front of the entrance was the staircase to our landlady’s apartment. The walls were colored white, with a strip of floral wallpaper that ribboned around the room. The carpet was of a dark green color, flattened and matted more and more over time from years of my family and I coming in and out.

Entering my apartment, the first room you would be in is the living room, femininely decorated. The floors were carpeted in what my mom remembers as a light rose color, but I remember them as a soft brown. She told me that I probably have sepia-colored memories. Our curtains were zebra print and quite chic for the time, until they outlived their trendiness in about 2014. There was a large couch, and a loveseat covered in light beige fabric, upholstered on each of the edges. Next to those was a chaise that was much older than everything else, which I would use for my fancy princess role plays, lying on my side and pretending to be fed grapes by my imaginary servants. This boujeeness was caused by many things, but I can narrow it down to two reasons: too many compliments from my mom, and just enough princess movies.  

Our coffee table was one of those chest ones that opened at the top. This is where I kept my toys, sketch books, random knick-knacks and doodads. Many of these toys were hand-me-downs, given to me by my older cousins that were much more well-off than me. Majority of the time, they were Barbie dolls that came from a time before Mattel developed that cool knee-elbow joint technology. Our TV stand was one of those ugly pieces of furniture with glass on all sides and sliver metal that surrounded the edges, while our 32-inch-or-so TV stood atop it. So long as it could play Game of Thrones, my mom was happy.

To the right of the TV was a small white metal side table that held our DVD player, which was used less and less as the years went by, eventually caked in layers of dust that I would sometimes pick up with my finger. Right on top of this DVD player stood my Wii. I only owned two games; Tangled and Mario. But, being the sly kid that I was, I would steal the games my well-off cousins would bring over. Sometimes, it was Mario Kart—other times, it was Wii Sports.

Here was my process: First, I’d ask them to bring one of the games over. When I knew they were about to go home, I would slide the CD case under my coffee table. If they tried to look for it, I could just act stupid. Most of the time, their mom would get too impatient for them to continue looking, so she’d say that I’ll look for it later and they could go pick it up if I ended up finding it. Whenever this worked, I was looking at about a day or two alone with the games before they came back.

Next to the table holding my Wii and DVD player was the entrance to our dining/kitchen area, landlord special’ed in dark red paint. As soon as you walked in, to the left was the fridge, and next to the fridge was a wall. That wall contained all sorts of scurrying and chirping noises. We could never tell if they were birds or squirrels—maybe both, and maybe the two animal clans were having a turf war or something. These sounds came mostly during the summer, and no matter how much we complained, those sounds would still come through and freak me out.

We had a glass dining table and seats with covers on them that had been stained a light blue from being in the wash. The most important thing in our house stood our family desktop, placed directly in front of our small bathroom that constantly smelled like cigarettes because of my mom's bad chain-smoking habit. She believed that if she smoked out the bathroom window, the smell would be contained. It was not. My sister, when she reached her teens, would also smoke weed in there because she thought the shower steam would get rid of that skunky smell. It did not.

The computer chair was this huge leather monster. It was so incredibly comfortable for me, as I could sit crisscross applesauce while I played Woozworld or some other dress-up game. Directly behind the desktop itself, though, was a printer that we never used. I think we used it a couple times when my mom first got it. Anytime I asked her why she didn’t use it, she’d say something along the lines of: “Because ink is fucking expensive, and I’m a broke ass bitch.” In fact, we were such broke bitches that my mom was constantly pirating games—games that she’d play while I sat next to her in awe. My mom would usually pirate games by using a hotspot on her phone when we had no internet, which was most of the time.

When it wasn’t me or my mother using the computer, it was my sister. Being seven years older than me, she was a teenager when I was in elementary school, also meaning she was the perfect age to experience Emohood in its prime: the early 2010’s. Warped Tour, Paramore, Pierce the Veil, Asking Alexandria, Tumblr--these are just a few things she loved. For hours, she would scroll through Tumblr and Twitter to catch up on current emo events and fashion—her hair was all colors of the rainbow with a mean, heat damaged side bang. Ironeida (colloquially known as Nuni) would dye her hair so much, there was never a chance for her roots to grow in.

Right at the kitchen sink that overlooked our backyard was where my scene sister would have her hair dyed by my mom. I remember we would head over to Sally’s every now and then so she could pick some bright color from the section that had Manic Panic dye. The overwhelming feeling I had looking at every color of the rainbow in all shades was so surreal for tiny me. The memory of my mom holding my hand while Nuni scanned the wall of color flashes in my mind sometimes, and for some reason is so comforting. I eventually came to realize how lucky we were to have a Hispanic mom that beat all stereotypes and expectations placed on her. She let us express ourselves, defying all the ideas of her former Pentecostal church, where she once got whooped for putting Sun-In in her hair.

I even recall this one time I had a serious love for hot pink: my sister was dyeing her hair this color, and eight-year-old me took it personally that I wasn’t also having my neck-length bob cut bleached and dyed. I wanted to look like my sister—we have different fathers (or, as my mom calls them, “Sperm Donors”) meaning we already look nothing alike. I would look at her and see she was beautiful, with an unforgiving stare and size two jeans. So… as a compromise, my mom dyed a small strip of my hair pink. It wasn’t much, but I felt like beautiful—I showed off this strip of color at school so excitedly and was so happy to see all those girls be so jealous of me. When the color washed away, I was left with a blonde streak, which was equally as cool and continued to grow out and fade even as I got to middle school, when my hair was long and passed my lower back.

I finally knew how my sister felt when coloring her own hair, being able to express herself through not only music, but appearance. She’s why I got a septum piercing as soon as I could when I was seventeen and about to enter college, so I could emulate the coolness she passed down to me, which I will never admit. This coolness was even shown through her bedroom. The only sounds you could ever hear from it was her blasting her radio on a purple metal shelving unit which also had a place for her to hang her clothes. Right under that radio was her CD copies of her favorite albums, ranging from purchased versions to pirated ones, thanks to my mom.

I hated her music, actually. I was a girly girl that loved Selena Gomez and Lady Gaga, so the screaming punk/pop rock bands she loved grated my ears most of the time. The only band I loved (and still love) was Paramore. Nuni and I didn’t get along very well, but when we did, it was due to my curiosity and her fixations. I would get the scoop on things I hardly understood about the band:

"Oh my gosh, Josh Farro left?”

“They’re gonna be at Warped Tour?!”

“YOU’RE going to Warped Tour?!?!?!?!?!”

Those are just a few examples of how I would connect with her. It would begin a string of conversations and connection I craved from my older sister. She was someone I would brag about to my classmates, but I was confident she didn’t do the same with me, because I was her little annoying sister that she loved but also cast sidewards glances towards if I said anything she found too little-sister-ish

So, I wanted to give her reasons to think that I was cool, even though I most certainly was not.

I would go inside her room and look at all the posters that were hung up. There were ones from Twilight, the bands I mentioned, and more. She had white walls trimmed in a light purple from before her scene phase (was it a phase, though?), yet I thought it still really fit the room and her style.

She even had collector's edition Twilight dolls that I so badly wanted to take out of the packaging but couldn’t for good reason. I didn’t understand the series at the time, and I would snoop through the novels she kept on the shelf of her bedside table, which was a cheap, fake wood/linoleum piece that I’d play with and peel off.

When I would mention the ugly side table, she’d say something along the lines of: “Mom got this for my room when we were living on Plains Road,” she’d start. “Our cousins and I wrote on the side of it in Sharpie because we were ‘lil badasses. Always up to some dumb shit,” and she would follow these statements with something like, “Okay, now get your ass out my room.”

When she didn’t tell me to get my ass out her room, we’d always have fun. I faintly remember this one time, when she was past her emo phase at maybe sixteen years old, she did my eyebrows for the first time. She used tweezers and took an agonizingly long time to do them—my eyebrows were as thick and furry as the woolly bear caterpillars I would be too scared to go near at my school playground.  Every little pluck sent tears to my eyes and caused me to flinch, and Nuni would just tell me to stop being a pussy as I damn near pissed myself a little bit the longer she took. I swear to God that took about ten hours to nine-year-old me. Lo and behold, I eventually got used to plucking my eyebrows and stopped being a pussy. Thanks, Ironeida.

The only thing that broke my sister’s tough exterior was our cat, Arya, which we would also call: “Kitty Meow Meow” and “Munkins.” That was her baby, who later ran away when we lost the apartment that came after this one. Arya was as tough as Nuni, who loved stealing food straight from your plate, attacking your feet if they dangled from the bed or couch, and chasing people, trying to slap their feet with her little tabby paws. She would always cuddle with my mom and sister, laying atop their chest. We always joked that Arya never lied on my chest because I didn’t have boobs yet—“You ain’t got no cushion yet!”

  That was definitely true.

The proof of Arya’s existence was all over the house, mostly through scratch marks. Since there were only two bedrooms in the whole house, I slept next to my mother. Our room was as cozy as I still imagine it. The carpet was this dark blue, and incredibly soft. Right next to it was a scratched-up fabric wardrobe that fell victim to Arya’s claws, which felt fitting with her Game of Thrones themed name my mom nerdily picked out.

This holey wardrobe was where we kept our coats and blankets, and the actual closet we had was storage for things we no longer used. It was stock-full of old clothes my mom wore, which I think about all the time. Clubbing shirts, gorgeous vintage boots, what my mom called “Clothes from my puta days.” At the time I thought they were hideous, but now I think I would chop off my arm and throw it down a cliff to have all of those pieces. I find it so regrettable I couldn’t inherit them, that now I hoard all my clothing in hopes that my future daughter (or a feminine son) might experience the cyclical nature of fashion and find use for them.

My mom wasn’t that into fashion and clothes when I was a kid, which is true even now. She did, however, love makeup. She couldn’t leave the house without a full face. The ways she filled her eyebrows, drew on her eyeliner, and knew her way around a potted eyeshadow could be considered an art form. She’d pair these looks with a gaudy purse that smelt like mint gum. My mom herself wasn’t gaudy though—she was a secret intellectual who had a shelf of novels. The genres hardly ever differed from one another—paranormal novels and true crime was what she stuck to, and she diverted specifically for Game of Thrones (I wouldn’t be talking about my mom if I didn’t mention GoT thirty times). I remember there was this one Dean Koontz novel (I think it was False Memory) she had that had a cover that scared the fuck out of me—it had this ghost-like figure on the front that looked like a woman trying to break through something. I never even wanted to be in the room if it wasn’t tucked away.

I slept on the left side of the bed while she slept on the right. No father in the house meant I got to be closer to my mommy. I think I remember sleeping in Nuni’s room when I was super young, but I hardly remember it—I understood eventually, especially when I became a teenager. You need privacy at that age. But I loved sleeping next to my mother. It was comforting, especially since we both couldn’t sleep with the light off.

Now, since I’m no longer afraid of the dark, I get turn my light off and have sepia-colored dreams of Lebanon Avenue.