calmIt makes me wonder about what I can recall from my (super-shorter) life. The moments I first remember when I think about my child-years are not ... pivotal times. I think I remember many more small details than what I list here, but there are so many events which I would not know about if others did not tell me (apparently I was quite the environmentalist when I was small). How did these times come to be imprinted in my memory?
I remember standing in the dark while wearing a purple housecoat zipped all the way up ... we must have left home far later than we had hoped to, for the adults seemed angry to be setting up camp in the dark. I was grasping a blue plastic Triceratops.
I remember escaping from the constant night rain under a blue tarp, playing cards with others by white lanternlight. My feet were in the mud ... I can see my shoes clearly. They had been white, with a printed pattern of green, purple, and peach.
I remember mist on the stone beach, and cheap plastic ponchos.
While I attended summer camp, I kept myself occupied with Angle, my imaginary red-headed best friend from the Logalog Galaxy. We would walk along the long path to Astronomy class together, and every summer I celebrated her birthday on a different day. I also distinctly recall the disgust I had with the changing facility, where we had to leave our swimsuits hanging from these poles ... there was no roof, so when it rained, things fell onto the concrete floor and got dirty. I hated that lake, it was muddy and cold. I made a bracelet one year at that camp, one where each set of beads represented a character, and they all interacted with each other. I lost it.
I would play at being a sea otter while at the pool. I know I did not learn how to swim until I was eight, due to having a significant hole in my left ear drum which prevented me from putting my head in/under water. I remember being unable to attend the local parade after my first surgery, and being quite sad about it ... but then my family tossed candy over the TV screen so we could imagine that we were there.
These are not really moments which inspire legends, but they are events which helped to create the current "me." I wonder how soon that "me" will be forgotten as I move on with my life, and (of course) eventually die.
