Prologue
We all fall off that tower, we all skim above the ground at a great pace and can’t keep on it, we all say:
“This must be a dream, because I in this strange low-‐roofed, beam-‐constructed place
once before and it turned out to be a dream.”
We all confound the living with the dead and we all frequently have knowledge or suspicion that we are doing it.
–Charles Dickens
Elbow Dreams is a memoir that opens a window and answers basic questions: a healing solution to life in the Americas. Seen through the cultural lens of family, friends, country, language and consciousness of color,
it traces the journey from a child’s inchoate sense of her world to one made visible by diverse realities.
My purpose is to help a child who suffers from lack of space to imagine room to breathe, away from the asphalt dwellings that America calls projects. At the age of ten I was already old: leaning on my elbows, looking out of the project window and dreaming of leaving the concrete behind for a place free from bruising; a place where I could hear my own self and note every sight and sound, recording the moments, people and experiences
that have finally led to becoming a writer and living in Vermont. This memoir is meant as a guide. When you pass the American flag you may allow a tear or two to fall down your right, then your left cheek, but more importantly you will have learned, from this memoir of childhood, that you can and must contribute to the eradication of human suffering-‐-‐foremost the eradication of your own suffering.