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By Cie Gumucio

Here, in my neighborhood...

two deflated red balloons dangle from a mailbox, candy wrappers remnants from a tattered pinata and a pink cake box stained with vanilla frosting in the driveway,.

Here, a home was once a horse stable, next to 50’s style apartment buildings, quaint California Craftsman and Victorian beauties.

In my neighborhood, expensive scooters and Teslas wiz by broken bottles, and abandoned mattresses and the clickity-clack and wail from the train that winds along one side and a still mountain range on the other.

The street I live on was named for Chumash Native American healing baths… broken by cross streets named for soldiers and politicians… Ortega, De La Guerra and Cota Streets all the way to the sea and to Cabrillo Blvd.

Here, in my neighborhood a brown bulldog, all jowls and muscle waits in the same spot on the front porch, eyeballs every dog walked by his fence with fanged disapproval. Above him, the lily white hands of the magnolia tree are about to open. 

A 10 minute walk away, the straw and clay of the historic Presidio barracks and stone oven, the grating buzz of bulldozers building concrete apartment towers.
Weeds celebrate, dancing after the rain as though born from a fairytale illustration…one, a sorceress’s wand, another, a distant planet alive in its own chroma.

Gods of summer will tempt the jacaranda to trail and drop her lilac skirt across the sidewalk, a crow will always be waiting on the rooflines.
Here, in my neighborhood, a small corner market with just two rows of goods…Double-mint gum, six packs of beer, lotto tickets and Mexican spices, the Middle Eastern man behind the register has kind eyes and a soft voice.

Here, in our California, gardeners tilt back their faces to the warmth of the sun next to the rakes and shovels leaning against their truck.

A neighbor, is just home from the hospital...bright colored envelopes and casseroles in foil wait by her doorstep.