five thousand shades of blue
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
like the corners of my mind
She made me think of childhood memories, how flawed and imperfect mine own are. There are so many memories that I've associated with being 12 -- surely they can't all have happened when I was 12. Like getting mono, getting my hair cut, learning to ride a bike...
Playing in snow that was so deep, during the Blizzard of '77, that it went to the top of the chain link fence (probably 4.5 feet)... I can remember my grand plan for tunnelling holes beneath the snow and getting only so far before it collapsed in. There is always snow, it seems, from walking home in the snow to have one of the bullyboys throw something that hit me in the back (turned out to be a dead rat, ew); fearing the walk to the bus stop during junior high because of Barb G and her incessant taunt of my mittens; getting into deep trouble when my younger brother removed his boots and socks to splash in a snowy puddle while I was supposed to be watching him outside. My red and yellow snowsuit, still so vivid in my mind it was a part of
my holiday card.
I remember my great grandmother, who used to sit at my grandma's kitchen table and mutter and curse in Polish, and it bothers me that I don't remember her death, nor can I remember whose mother she was. Christmases with the whole family, all of the little cousins, and I wondered even then (not bitterly) how come Santa always brought the Long Island cousins more expensive presents. (Funny, the more I try to consciously think about childhood memories the fewer I can conjure up.)
Trying like hell to get a ticket back east for the end of March, and I guess I'm getting a little homesick. I haven't been back since 1998. I'm down two grandparents and it's going to be hard visiting their graves. And everything is just so different there now.
is
this just not enough…?
