Were you ever that young?
Feb. 28th, 2006 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisSometimes I am just whacked with the memory of a feeling from when I was little.
I remember hating the guy they shot out of a cannon at the circus. I hated it so much that I dreaded the circus that Daddy took us to every year.
I remember westerns on TV. Someone was always getting swallowed up by quicksand. I had a dread fear of quicksand. I never ever heard of it or saw it outside of those westerns but today, the idea of quicksand is still not terribly appealing.
I remember the allure of my own space - a tent made of of blankets across the twin beds, a refrigerator box to play in. The feeling that I got when I was in a space like that was amazingly wonderful. And it was so powerful that I can conjure it up today with very little effort.
I remember once I wanted sandals. I was younger than 6 (because we still lived in Kansas City). I was told I could not have sandals. So I made some for myself out of cardboard and a rag that had been a pillowcase. I thought my parents would be angry that I had stolen the scissors and the rag and the cardboard from places where I wasn't allowed. But they were amazed at my creativity and execution. It felt amazingly wonderful and I remember it so vividly that I can tell you what I was wearing at the time.
I can remember nearly every single report card day. My grades sucked and for two days before and two days after I felt like so much pond scum - a disappointment to everyone on the face of the earth. In my adulthood, I have managed to create a world where I rarely feel like that any more but it does not take much for me to remember those feelings exactly.
I remember being short - kid short. So short that I have vivid memories of studying the skirt hems of women and the socks of men and wondering what it would be like to look at the top of kids' heads.
And I have no idea why all of this is front of mind this morning.
I remember hating the guy they shot out of a cannon at the circus. I hated it so much that I dreaded the circus that Daddy took us to every year.
I remember westerns on TV. Someone was always getting swallowed up by quicksand. I had a dread fear of quicksand. I never ever heard of it or saw it outside of those westerns but today, the idea of quicksand is still not terribly appealing.
I remember the allure of my own space - a tent made of of blankets across the twin beds, a refrigerator box to play in. The feeling that I got when I was in a space like that was amazingly wonderful. And it was so powerful that I can conjure it up today with very little effort.
I remember once I wanted sandals. I was younger than 6 (because we still lived in Kansas City). I was told I could not have sandals. So I made some for myself out of cardboard and a rag that had been a pillowcase. I thought my parents would be angry that I had stolen the scissors and the rag and the cardboard from places where I wasn't allowed. But they were amazed at my creativity and execution. It felt amazingly wonderful and I remember it so vividly that I can tell you what I was wearing at the time.
I can remember nearly every single report card day. My grades sucked and for two days before and two days after I felt like so much pond scum - a disappointment to everyone on the face of the earth. In my adulthood, I have managed to create a world where I rarely feel like that any more but it does not take much for me to remember those feelings exactly.
I remember being short - kid short. So short that I have vivid memories of studying the skirt hems of women and the socks of men and wondering what it would be like to look at the top of kids' heads.
And I have no idea why all of this is front of mind this morning.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-28 05:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-28 06:34 pm (UTC)I'd LOVE to hear your memories. Spill, dude.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 04:45 pm (UTC)My early memories are of places and doing things. Fort William in pouring rain, fish smells at Malaig, watching my little brother's bottle sail away on the tide, driving along (as passenger) the side of Loch Lomand when it was still a single track road and worrying about falling over the side into the water, camping next to Neptune's Staircase in Corpach and wondering if the Loch Ness Monster was really in the swirling water like my brothers said. Going in to Newcastle on the bus (a five and a three, 8d, 3p or about 6c to take two people 15 miles) from Ouston so my mother could get her hair done by some French bloke who called me Christophe and thought I was most amusing. I wasn't amused. Then going to Marc Tony's and wondering how my mother could drink that crap (coffee) and why the hell were we in this dingy hole anyway. The glorious smell of gorse bushes in bloom. Second degree sunburn at Boulmer. Hooking my own leg fishing at Warrne Mill when I was about five and wondering if my mother would be angry, I pushed the point through so my brother could cut it off with side cutters and then bandaged it with my sock. Dinner in our summer home, a trailer on the coast at Tigh-na-mara at the Back of Keppoch in Scotland, the smell of cooking over 'Calor' gas, gas lights and BBC Radio Scotland on the radio. Rain thrashing against the roof and shaking the place while we slept. Sometimes huge Atlantic rollers crashing onto the rocks. Flat calm days when the Sea of Sleet and the Minches were mirror smooth and the Inner Hebrides were reflected in the surface. Standing around at 10pm watching the sunset. Sledging down our street in Ouston, I still don't know how I made that corner. Falling in the fire in my Christmas jumper and burning through the arm, ten minutes old and ruined and I still feel apologetic, though my grandmother, who knitted it, was gratified that it saved me from being burned. My benevolent paternal grandparents, all I remember is the smiles and kind voices, they were both dead before I was six, less than one year apart. Grandma Hann died, then their dog Kim less than a month later because she wouldn't eat and Grandfather less than a year after that, he'd done his best and now he could relax.
Most stuff I remember is round Scotland though, because I lived for those six weeks of summer. If I could be anywhere in the world it would be there.
Anyway...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 05:08 pm (UTC)Now I have what is probably a stupid question but... if you want to be in Scotland why aren't you? Is it a job thing?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 12:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 05:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 12:10 pm (UTC)In other words: You haven't missed all that much really.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 06:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 05:05 pm (UTC)