Thursday, September 09, 2010

La Llorona

This blasted and spooky-looking spot on the edge of Brushy Creek used to contain half a dozen awful houses, usually rented by Latino immigrants. There are two more "streets" of these houses still surviving. Yesterday morning, they had water inside their homes and their cars were partially submerged. Several of them keep chickens, and some of the poultry drowned.

Here is one that has been condemned but not yet torn down. Back in the day, when I was a single mom, desperate for a place I could afford, I looked into these houses. Turns out that they are owned by a very prominent citizen of Round Rock, whose name anyone in the Austin area would recognize. The houses were old, and spacious...but the holes in the walls (some of which admitted daylight), lack of air conditioning and pervasive fleas dissuaded me from living there.

This raging mess is Brushy Creek, taken looking west from the Georgetown Street bridge. The creek runs directly behind the houses mentioned above.

Same creek, looking a bit south. You can see the swollen creek itself, in the foreground. The calm water toward the left is usually dry ground. This is the spot where La Llorona lives on in Round Rock.

La Llorona is a Mexican ghost, who walks the banks of the creek. searching and crying for her drowned children.

Now, I understand. With the rate that water was moving, and the depth of it, losing a child would not be difficult. Turn your back for a second, and your little one could be half a mile downstream.

I've never seen or heard La Llorona...they say you have to have cried a lot in order to be aware of her. I've done that. Maybe I'm too much of a "huera."

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