Caridad De La Luz - El Garaje

 

[sighs] So, I’m born and raised in the Boogie Down (Bronx). [audience cheers and applause] I was raised on salsa and hip hop. And thanks to my Puerto Rican family, I’ll probably always live in the Boogie Down (Bronx). I lived in my grandmother’s house until the age of five. When I was five, my parents bought a house only five blocks away, because, you know, Puerto Ricans, we stick together. [audience chuckle] So, this house had a beautiful backyard, cherry tree, an apple tree, two broad maple trees. I felt like Pocahontas when I would play back there. And then, some years passed, and the house next door went up for sale and my father decided to buy that house too, because it had a huge trucking garage behind it, El Garaje. It was 50 x 50 square feet, 30-feet tall, this roof and it had these iron I-beams and these rolling cranes to pull the engines out of the trucks. 

 

My father was a mechanic and my mother was a teacher. Very hardworking people. So, they bought the houses. My parents had gotten married on Halloween, so they decided to throw a huge Halloween anniversary party in El Garaje. [audience chuckle] So, I dressed up as a hula girl, and Papi dressed up as a swami, Mommy dressed up as a cat. Even Darth Vader showed up. All our neighbors were there, our family was there and it was so much fun. We were dancing salsa. We were dancing merengue, cha cha, the hustle. We even did the limbo. [audience chuckle] My uncle was the best. He was dressed as Dracula. He would go under that stick and scrape the back of his head on the floor as he went. [audience chuckle]

 

So, time passed by, and my father started collecting things in the garage. Cars, broken cars. [audience chuckle] Bicycles, broken bicycles. Motorcycle. Then it was fans. He just started collecting stuff. And all along he was collecting stuff, he was also collecting women. Mommy knew about that. She was resigned to her little space. She had her living room clean, the kitchen clean, her bedroom clean. Slowly, every space in the house started getting filled up with stuff. My father had this thing that when somebody would die, he would volunteer to pick up all their stuff and bring it to the house. So, there was furniture and all kinds of things. It just grew and grew. He had this thing that I couldn’t throw things away either. So, not only was he collecting, but he wasn’t throwing things out.

 

If I threw away, like, a broken toy, it would wind up somehow back in the house. If I threw away a chair, it would wind up in the garage. A teddy bear, back on the bed. It was crazy. As a kid, it was fun, I must say. All those things, it was like a museum. Like, I would invite my friends and it was like a jungle. We would just swing through the stuff and playtime was fascinating. So, I go off to college, and I returned and now there was a catamaran in the backyard. [audience chuckle] Canoes, more broken cars. And underneath the rubble, there was cycles of life happening. There was dogs, cats, rats, squirrels. It was just wild. Now, it wasn’t fun. Like, now, it was embarrassing, like, we were the junkyard of the block.

 

There was a Jehovah’s Witness church next to our house, and they stopped knocking on our door to try to convert us. [audience laughter] They were probably looking like, “Not even Jehovah could help these people.” [audience laughter] So, then, I knew that things were not going to change. So, I did what my mother did too. I just put the blinders up and just kept looking forward and living my life. I met a man, and fell in love, and got married and had two beautiful children. Somehow, we found a way to make space for ourselves and live within the chaos. 

 

During that time, my father started traveling back and forth to Puerto Rico, because my grandfather had started getting sick. He was saying that he had to spend more time there, because my grandfather was sick. There was this little old lady that he needed to help that lived nearby. So, he would leave, but all his stuff would still stay there. My grandfather passed away, and then me and my mom, we went to Puerto Rico. And then, my mom saw that little old lady he was helping wasn’t actually a little old lady at all. She was a beautiful woman that owned a lot of land, and my father had seduced her and now, he was hoarding on her land too. [audience chuckle] 

 

Now, it was animals. He had horses and cows and goats. He was like a farmer and shit now. Six months passes, Papi doesn’t come back. I’m like, “Mommy, I think we should start throwing stuff out.” “No, no, no. If I throw any of his stuff out, he’ll make my life hell.” I was like, “I think he’s already made your life hell. It looks like hell to me.” Two years go by, the junk is still there. The third year, I’m like, “Mom, it’s time to throw this stuff away. Enough is enough.” She’s like, “No, no, no. You don’t have my blessing to do that. No.

Your father will be so upset.” I was like, “We are doing this.” 

 

So, I got a dumpster, a 30-yard metal dumpster. They come and they deliver it, this gleaming heap of metal. They open it up and it was empty, just dying to be filled. [audience chuckle] So, I start throwing things in there. I go into the garage and slowly start throwing things out. I found photo albums of families I never even knew. [audience laughter] I was like, “This got to go too.” [audience laughter] I started throwing things out with gusto, you know, like, with realm, real passion. I felt like Michael Jordan dunking a ball. I was like, “Thaaaa. [audience laughter] Bull.” 

 

I still throw things away like that, because it just feels so good. [audience laughter] So, I’m filling it out, right, taking everything out, cleaning things out. Now, I’m starting to see the floor of the garage. Now, I’m starting to see the ground and the grass. I’m throwing out carcasses of raccoons and just throwing things away. And now, I finally have some clarity. And then, my father, he returns from Puerto Rico, and he sees the stuff that I’ve thrown away and he was pissssed. [audience laughter] He said, “You threw away my dreams.” He’s like, “But that’s okay, because I’m going to come back here in six months and I’m going to fix this.” Okay.” 

 

So, he flies back to Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria happens. And now, there’s a lot of broken things that he’s promising to fix. So, he stays out over there, and I start fixing up El Garaje. And now, it’s a space where we make music, create poetry, art and dance, a place where we could fix our souls. I decided to throw a huge Halloween party. I invited all of my friends. Mommy showed up dressed as Sandy with her new boyfriend, Danny, from Greece. [audience laughter] They’re dancing salsa. 

 

I was dressed as a nurse because I like fixing people. We’re eating food, and drinking drinks, and dancing, and lights and clarity and beauty. Enough had been enough. And I was so, so happy. Even Rosie Perez showed up to my Halloween party. [audience laughter] I knew that even though my father said that I had thrown away his dreams, I had only just started living mine. Thank you.