Opening paragraphs pull me in...

I love first paragraphs and often I read them to Jeff.  These are the words that can grab you, draw you in, and a few days later, there you are turning the last page.  There are so many memorable ones but my favorite has always been Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities: 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.

So too with Sandra Cisneros.  Sandra's The House on Mango Street sat on my bookshelves for years, nodding at me when I would walk by, another classic waiting to be read, filling the gap in reading experiences.  So too, as I pick up the book for my morning reading, Sandra draws me in:

We didn’t always live on Mango Street.

Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor,
and before that we lived on Keeler.

Before Keeler it was Paulina,
and before that I can’t remember.

But what I remember most is moving a lot. 

Each time it seemed ther'd be one more of us. 

By the time we got to Mango Street we were six--

Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, my sister Nenny and me.

This is a book of short stories all interwoven with her early life experiences in a Chicago neighborhood. Her writing is terse, lyrical, laced with emotion.  These are vignettes that read like poetry:  rich, longing to be fulfilled, longing for something outside of her sphere of influence and reality.

These stories are filled with her insecurities of growing up poor yet she transcends them with her keen observations of her neighbor's realities.  In Linoleum Roses, her friend marries a marshmallow salesman in a state that allows underage marriages.  Her friend is in 7th or 8th grade:
 

She gains a house, pillowcases and plates...

She sits at home because she is afraid to go out
without his permission. 

She looks at all the things they own: 

the towels and the toaster,

the alarm clock and the drapes. 

She likes looking at walls,
at how nearly their corners meet,

the linoleum roses on the floor,

the ceiling smooth as wedding cake. 

Sandra paints vivid desciptions of her life in this neighborhood.  Her stories make me stop and set the book aside to reflect on the realities she tells and the emotions they trigger in me, the reader:

Everything is holding its breath inside me, 

Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. 

I want to be all new and shiny. 

I want to sit out bad at night,

a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. 

Not this way,

every evening talking to the trees,

leaning out my window,

imagining what I can't see.

--from the story Sire

I am thankful for this year of reading the books in my home.  I am thankful I too have a home of my own...and that I share it with someone I love...

Not a flat. 

Not an apartment in back. 

Not a man's house. Not a daddy's.

A house all my own.

With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. 

My books and my stories. 

My two shoes waiting beside the bed. 

Nobody to shake a stick at.  Nobody's garbage to puck up after.

Only a house quiet as  snow,

a space for myself to go,

clean as paper before the poem.

Worldcat