Why I Keep This Orange Ribbon, by Cynthia Orozco
My mother is a problem solver. When she encounters a problem, she isn’t limited by the solutions of others or an immediate web search. She lives life with a sharp, pragmatic sensibility driven by creativity and end results.
At some point long ago, the frustration of not being able to find her silver Corolla in any given parking lot, in any given city, at any given moment became too much. Her solution was to affix an orange ribbon to the driver’s side handle of the car. I can't imagine that she actually purchased this ribbon for this purpose; most likely it was a leftover ribbon from a present, or something else, that she saved, knowing that it might serve another purpose again someday soon. It was bold: a silky and smooth orange, almost towards burnt orange, ribbon, tied in a simple knot on that handle. The color never wavered, despite withstanding many bright and hot Sacramento summers.
The ribbon’s shine and gleam remained, until the point in my life when I unintentionally but permanently borrowed the car. When I brought it down to Orange County, I was now 400 miles away and yet still faced with my mom’s original problem: a sea of indistinguishable silver Corollas at any given parking lot I encountered. I left the ribbon in its original place for a while before I decided that this solution was my mom’s, and not mine.
Still, I kept the ribbon. It now lives, many years later, in a tin Curious George box from my teenage years, as a reminder of my mom’s ingenuity, an ingenuity that took some time for me to understand. As a teenager, I thought my mom was different and weird, and that that was a bad thing. The ribbon solution made me cringe. I was embarrassed.
As a second-generation child, I desperately wanted to fit in, to not show any signs of otherness. I suppose that’s a natural reaction as a child, to not understand your parents’ genius. To not understand the power that comes from independent thinking and marching to the beat of your own drum. So, I keep the ribbon, I think, as a way to remember who I am and who I come from.
