There are few memories of my childhood (pre-10) that I can truly pin down when I try.
Mostly, images flit randomly across a screen between my ears--a dalmatian jumping against a screen door, the Eiffel Tower, a lizard in the garden, Mom telling Dad that the neighbor's yard smells like pot, and me being very much in love with one of the homeschool co-op kids when I was 7.
But one of few is clear.
I am about 6, and I am kneeling on my bedroom floor. The afternoon sun bathes the pepto-bismol walls and the wood floor. I am trying to pry bright pink play-doh out of the cracks in the floorboards. I suddenly look up as my mom calls my name. [I don't think I am supposed to be playing with play-doh.]
She tells me that a neighbor unknowingly ran over Wolfie, the best dog in the universe. The world stops.
The truth is, now I can't remember much of Wolfie, except that he was named for Mozart, and that my mom spoke to him in Spanish sometimes.
And yet I have this strange urge to visit his grave behind my grandmother's house every time I visit. It's been 14 or 15 years, true, but the blank cement brick in the ground under the apricot tree marks my first memory of loss.
But then, as I intimated in the previous post, I have odd nostalgic associations. I keep things.
Which is why it is hard to imagine that my grandmother will be selling her house soonish. Ok, well, not because of the dog buried in the backyard, but also because Opa and I planted a garden in the courtyard. And picked fruit from the back trees. And because Nano and I watched hummingbirds on her porch, and then went inside to play dominoes.
I have picked swiss chard,
chased lizards with my cousins,
taken awkward family photos (I insisted on holding an American flag to cover up the bruise on my arm. The bruise showed anyway),
chatted at dinner parties,
lined the driveway with luminarias,
and spent hours opening Christmas presents.
Amidst changing houses and parents and schools and friends, this house is what I have always been able to come back to. So, coming to grips with the fact that all this nacimientos and paintings will have to go somewhere else soon is a bit overwhelming.
But hey, a house is a house right? Memories are one thing, but people are another.
All that said, if you appreciate beauty at all, you should check out the virtual tour of the house--and you might come to understand where I got any of my personal style and love of color :)
enjoy! (Facebookers, you might have to click "view original post" to see it.)
Mostly, images flit randomly across a screen between my ears--a dalmatian jumping against a screen door, the Eiffel Tower, a lizard in the garden, Mom telling Dad that the neighbor's yard smells like pot, and me being very much in love with one of the homeschool co-op kids when I was 7.
But one of few is clear.
I am about 6, and I am kneeling on my bedroom floor. The afternoon sun bathes the pepto-bismol walls and the wood floor. I am trying to pry bright pink play-doh out of the cracks in the floorboards. I suddenly look up as my mom calls my name. [I don't think I am supposed to be playing with play-doh.]
She tells me that a neighbor unknowingly ran over Wolfie, the best dog in the universe. The world stops.
The truth is, now I can't remember much of Wolfie, except that he was named for Mozart, and that my mom spoke to him in Spanish sometimes.
And yet I have this strange urge to visit his grave behind my grandmother's house every time I visit. It's been 14 or 15 years, true, but the blank cement brick in the ground under the apricot tree marks my first memory of loss.
But then, as I intimated in the previous post, I have odd nostalgic associations. I keep things.
Which is why it is hard to imagine that my grandmother will be selling her house soonish. Ok, well, not because of the dog buried in the backyard, but also because Opa and I planted a garden in the courtyard. And picked fruit from the back trees. And because Nano and I watched hummingbirds on her porch, and then went inside to play dominoes.
I have picked swiss chard,
chased lizards with my cousins,
taken awkward family photos (I insisted on holding an American flag to cover up the bruise on my arm. The bruise showed anyway),
chatted at dinner parties,
lined the driveway with luminarias,
and spent hours opening Christmas presents.
Amidst changing houses and parents and schools and friends, this house is what I have always been able to come back to. So, coming to grips with the fact that all this nacimientos and paintings will have to go somewhere else soon is a bit overwhelming.
But hey, a house is a house right? Memories are one thing, but people are another.
All that said, if you appreciate beauty at all, you should check out the virtual tour of the house--and you might come to understand where I got any of my personal style and love of color :)
enjoy! (Facebookers, you might have to click "view original post" to see it.)
