Jasmine Labastida Flores

10/28/2022

Project #1 Memoir

My memories of home are hidden away, somewhere deep inside my mind. To remember means to
unlock memories I have buried away in my heart. These are some of my happiest memories, beautiful
moments decorated with sentimental glimmers of home and childhood. During the summer of 2020, I
traveled home to see my parents, for the first time after a year since the last time I saw them and the last
time I visited since. My favorite times were spent with my dad, riding in the passenger seat of his white
taxi. Sitting in the passenger seat and driving around a city that was once my home, I became saddened by
the extent to which my memory had continuously failed me. Depriving me of the comfort of home when I
needed it the most after leaving. I made an effort to track my memory through the view of the car window.
Being in the passenger seat allowed me to remember everything I had left behind, exploring every inch
and corner of the home I had forgotten. Driving through the streets of Tepoztlan again, I reflected on the
fragments my memory had left me with, safeguarding them inside my heart, absorbing them with every
look outside the window.
The traces of my life and my family's life linger on the dirt and rock-ridden roads. The footsteps
of my black leathered school shoes once again became visible. They took me up the hill I once walked
every morning and left me at the green-painted entrance of a small middle school with only 7 classrooms.
The path by which I ran through the rain so many years ago had never been clearer and as I looked
through the foggy window of my dad’s white taxi, I felt once again my green uniform soaked in the
droplets of the pouring rain. Through those rock-paved streets, I once ran, yelling to the sky to bring more
thunder down on earth. The memory of freedom, joy, and excitement plagued my heart and a once
beautifully joyous moment became tainted with melancholy and nostalgia. Those rocky, and full of dirt
roads make it impossible for cars to drive above 15mph per hour. However, the beautiful green scenery
and picturesque little town compensate for the horrid traffic and foot pain. Located in the center of
Mexico, just two hours away from Mexico City, this peaceful mountain lodge becomes Tepoztlán.
Originally from the Nahuatl language, Tepoztlan translates to a “place of abundant copper” or a “place of
the broken rocks”.
Throughout my life, I have been known for having terrible memory. I forget easily and fast, at
times comical to those who have known me long enough. Events, places, items, and sometimes people…
all become foggy after a while. I am saddened by the memories I will perhaps never remember and for the
ones I vaguely remember. But the car ride is not over and I tell myself I can memorize more as we drive
through the edge of Los Venaditos, where tourists go to see the waterfalls. They do not know the best
waterfalls are on the other side of the mountain, nor the secret paths to get there. My dad leads me to
sunny June days when my cousins and I would hike to secret waterfalls to bask under the natural rainfall
using compact streets where one person at a time could fit. We would play in the creeks of rivers until
dusk and sit on the steps of my grandma's corner store eating popsicles and waiting for our dads to come
home from driving around all day. My dad would clean my sticky hands and tell me all about the
international tourists that rode in his taxi that day. I smiled at the memory. Passing the secret roads, we
head back to the center of town, driving down the streets I once used to go to El Mercado with my family.
During Wednesday evenings we would go on walks down barrio Santo Domingo to El Centro where old
women sell raw honey, tortillas in comales, and where you can buy homemade yogurt for ten pesos.
People greet each other as they walk by, smiling and talking about their children, work, and everything in
between. I saw the footprints my family had left behind, traces of their laughs and voices lingered through
the streets, or perhaps only in my mind.
Driving down Avenida el Tepozteco into the middle of the town, I saw the gigantic mounts of
hills. They are formed by pieces of rock giving the impression of mountains falling apart, breaking. I
understood the name of my home only when I looked outside my window, staring at the broken hills.
Alongside my dad, I watched people come and go, sitting in the center of town waiting for people to ask
for a ride. We reflected on the past and talked about the future, discussing the direction we wanted our life
to take. I was scared of the future and what it meant to go away to college. My father told me people
make sacrifices for the people they love, and our life in Tepoztlan was a testament to a line of hard work
which began with my grandmother. She had left her home and arrived in Tepoztlan at sixteen where she
built a home, running away from a past and place I have never known about. My dad takes me on a
bumpy car ride throughout Tepoztlan, first to the corner of Barrio Santo Domingo and Xilotepec where a
yellow three-story house now stands. This house was once a single bedroom with a kitchen, where my
grandma raised four sons and a daughter. Now on that land, a tall house stands still, carrying the history of
three generations.
On the corner of Xilotepec and Camino al barrio Santo Domingo the bright yellow three-story
house looks into the cornfields and broken hills. As we drive up the street towards a road so compact cars
going the other way have to wait until the other passes, the house appears closer and taller. My dad parks
in the same dirt path every time, leaving enough space for my uncle to park when he comes home from
driving all day too. We get out of the car and go up the stairs I climbed a million times before, up to the
second floor where the sun shines through the glass windows filling the dining space with a yellow glow,
a first-row seat to the broken mountains. I spent all my summers here and a couple of school years before
moving to the US at twelve. It has been two years since I visited home. To leave a place of comfort when
I was twelve and again when I was eighteen was a sacrifice I made for myself and the people I love the
most. We give up parts of ourselves for love and the people we love and that summer I gave a part of
myself to the possibility of a different and better life, one three generations of my family, and now I have
worked hard for me to have. There is one thing my deteriorating memory can never take away from me
and that is the link of love and family tying me to my home, my Tepoztlan.