I remember.
I remember the broken light of morning. I remember snow falling, and wanting so bad to build a snowfort that I rushed through homework in an hour when it usually took me all day. I remember throwing snowballs. And getting hit. And laughing. I remember the prison, the fortress, the lookout post, the inner wall, the outer wall--might snowforts. We would tip the kiddy pool upside down for a roof. I remember how sad I would be to see them melt, year after year. I remember pomp. He would clap his hands and we would run--faster and faster. Always run by the fence. One long dash to freedom and if he goes after you, you have the aspens to dodge behind. But he rarely goes after you. If he's Tyler he goes after CJ, if he's CJ he goes after Tyler. And then they get each other and you and her are in trouble because there's no way you can both get past them. I remember our sandbox. We had great ambitions to dig to the center of the Earth. Only we only got a foot before we hit clay, and then the going would get tough, and he would go and get a real shovel to dig deeper, and then Mom would chide us for mixing clay into the sand. And then after it rained the hole would be gone. I remember pirates and merchants on the swing-set. If you are a pirate you start at the blue swing thingy on the west side, and you'd have to climb or swing or jump or crawl to the yellow swing on the east. Because that's where the merchants always are, and they always have Granny's Apple Cider or Black Cherry Soda. I remember those were synonymous with treasure--Black Cherry Soda and Granny's Apple Cider. I don't remember ever pausing to think of how they tasted, or if I had ever tasted them. They were legends, myths. Worth fighting for. Worth falling from the swing-set's crossbeam and spraining an ankle on the sand. Which I don't remember doing. I remember hide and seek. The only game outside we played as a whole family. Mom hid in the peach tree and it took us forever to find her because we never thought to look up. Every time after that we remembered to look in the peach tree. People stopped hiding there. I remember so many places to hide. Not just for hide and seek. For tag, or King of Death, or Adventure, or for pouting after a basketball game. Under the deck. In my window well. Inside a bush on the corner where you could remain unseen for hours if people didn't know to look there. Crouched behind the branches of a weeping willow. In the recycle bin. In the corn. One of the best spots was behind a row of rocks, by the street. No one thought to look there, it was so obvious. I remember the rose bushes. Their thorns tantalized me. In my sheltered innocent world they presented the most danger, except perhaps spiders and bees. So many thorns, all lined up along the sidewalk just waiting to snag you. He pushed her in once. On accident, officially. I still remember all the cuts she got. I remember swinging, swinging, swinging, till you could see nothing but sky on the upswing and nothing but sand on the downswing. We would edge off our shoes, slowly, carefully, and then fling them as far as we could. And then hop in our stocking feet to retrieve them. I never won. I remember baseball. We pitched from the north for years until we realized by pitching from the west we didn't hit so many balls over the fence. The fence was easy to climb but the neighbors had dogs. I was terrified of dogs. Once we pitched from the west we could hit it over the house, which was a guaranteed home run. So was the window-well. I remember football with my brother. He danced circles around me and every game ended in my tears. I cried a lot, back before I realized that you save tears for the important things. I remember the garden. Off limits. Without exceptions. When the corn was ripe Dad would pick it and toss it to us, blindly, through the corn like a game of 500. We would fan out like a patch of receivers, trying with our might to avoid dropping any. Then we would husk them all. I hated husking corn. It didn't help that I refused to eat the finished product. I remember barbeques. The smoke and flames dancing in the grill. It would take an hour to make all the food and dish up all the food and carry all our plates outside. Then we'd eat and in ten minutes it would be over. And bees always investigated the baked beans. I remember the spruce trees. They caught anything. Footballs, frisbees, baseballs. You throw a broom or a bat up and they'd catch that too. Then he would get the ladder and you'd hold it as he climbed. I remember the rabbits. They ate everything--flowers, carrots, grass. We'd spot them from the house and then it would be rabbit chasing time. He blocks the south side with a gate as you and I come from the north with laundry baskets. And the rabbit would slip through the fence and Mom would block up the hole and we'd wait for another day. We caught six that way, and two with a trap. The laundry baskets worked better than traps. I remember a rabbit screaming when the vet down the street picked it up. I remember basketball in the hot sun on a summer afternoon. You and I would do all we could to beat him and we never could. He'd let us get ahead and then his competitive side would kick in and next thing we knew, he had scored six points. Have I ever beaten him? I don't think so. I remember the Death Star Run. We'd fire up the scooters and go racing down the sidewalk with tennis balls clutched in our hands. And the cones would come up way to fast and then it was time to turn around and if you get it wrong you slammed the scooter into your shin. I remember chalk. We drew roads and stores and gas stations and drive around in our scooters. Tyler was always the road hog. I remember the dirt piles. One would arrive one day, unannounced, and we'd have a huge pile of dirt to haul before we could use the van. So we'd grab the wheelbarrow and the shovels and you would all work as I tried to dig a tunnel through. We built sixteen beds over sixteen years with those dirt piles. And Dad would come home and be completely surprised. Mom never told him when she ordered dirt. I remember deadheading. My scissors going snip, snip, as I wreaked destruction on the flowers that dared wither into ugliness. I would get blisters if I did it for too long, or wore the wrong gloves. I remember the planes flying overhead. If you didn't know better they sounded like dragons. I remember short-lived attempts at freeze-tag and dodgeball and soccer. I remember the Battles of Hoth. Tennis balls and frisbees and kickballs would be flying everywhere, and the stately trod of you and CJ on your knees as Tyler and I ran around you, pelting you with anything we could throw. The ATAT's always won. I remember growing up. And suddenly all of that was gone. And all that was left was remembering.
8 Comments
|