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then the bottoms, and last in between each finger. Just enough pressure to feel the towel and her hands doing the work of drying a child's hand. At home we quickly washed our own hands with cold water, stopping before the water was clear. Only my grandmother used warm water.

After my grandmother washed my hands I knew I had a body and it could feel. She gave me dimension; I was no longer flat. I stood out away from the background of trash and away from the molding of the doorway. Being dirty at my grandmothers had the most pleasurable rewards. My grandmother took special care to wash every finger, top, bottom and in between. I was clean to the touch.


All our family photos were taken with a black rectangle box camera made by Kodak and owned by my grandmother. This was a simple manufactured pinhole camera. There was no light meter, no film speed. She would hold the camera below her waist, close to her body, keeping it steady, look down into the viewfinder and push the metal lever that was on the right. Our life came out frozen in black and white. There was no color film or color image. My grandmother was the one that bought the film, took the pictures and had them developed. There was a sequence, a plan and a result. Most of the pictures were taken in her front yard. This is the area that defied Arizona's fire and ice climate. Trees, plants, shrubs and small patches of grass, rose bushes and two Chinaberry trees were growing there.

In the summer the two trees did their job. The leaves grew back and created a large canopy of shade. The Chinaberry tree is from the south and grows wild in Texas. This was a tree my grandmother knew and wanted to see in her yard. The trees formal name is Melia azedarach, which we were never told. The tree brought something more than just shade and that was a word, China.

Even though the front yard had plants and an attempt at landscaping, the garden hose was still tangled across the eight-foot wide yard. Bermuda grass only grew on the perimeters; it was all dirt in the middle. A small wood boarder outlined the yard where the roses grew. The pink blooms would come in the spring, before the hot climate took over. The roses were never cut and brought into the house. They stayed outside where in two days they would be brown and dead. There was a white picket fence of rough wood and chipping paint that defined the perimeter. Picket fences have always been a symbol that there is civility and care given to the enclosed space and at a distance this worked for my grandmother's yard. Our pictures growing up were always taken in the front yard. We grew up with the Chinaberry trees, the roses, the dirt, and the hose making a line towards our feet. Our growth stages were always planted and photographed in the front yard.

Running water and shade were two important elements that could only be found in the front yard. The rest of our world was hot and dry. The water could soak in to the ground and make it easier to dig through the top layer. It was here in the front yard with water and shade from the Chinaberry tree, that an idea grew. The trees made me aware of