Memoirs of the Best of Times (Flicked, Hair Dryer, Crackled, Parachute, Olive)

While walking into the house for the first time in forty years, I noticed that most of the walls were painted a drab, olive green. Some of the windows held old venetian blinds that crackled as I attempted to push them up in order for the sun to penetrate the dusty, film covering the windows. I flicked off a dead fly from the sill where in the past I would stare for hours looking outside at the birds, the trees, and my older siblings playing in the back yard. When I was young the walls had been a bright white with curtains that had vivid colors all over them in some kind of paisley print. In the bathroom was an old hair dryer with the cord hanging down over the sink in a limp position that reminded me of abandonment, neglect, and desertion. Which told me not everyone had the same emotions crossing the thresholds inside as I did. Roaming from room to room brought a cascade of memories that clouded my mind and heart. I could see clearly the times that my sister and I would hide from my mom behind the edge of the dresser. How in the world did we think that we were ever really hidden? One time I brought home a jar of baby frogs, tiny little things that represented treasure beyond belief. I put them in a shoebox with grass and a jar lid full of water. Astonished was the only emotion I had the next morning when my baby frogs were not in the perfect house that had been fashioned just for them. Where they ever went I never found out. In my brother’s old room, we would set up a cave made out of blankets and sheets. First of all my brother would help me take the sheets and parachute them into place right over the chairs and other mobile type furniture to make just the right fort. I would play in there for hours setting up my dolls, stuffed animals, and several books.

So often the patterns we set up as young children carry over into our adult lives. I still love bright walls, cheerful curtains, and looking outside in my back yard. As my mind wandered through that old house, it struck me how all of the elements of my life could be found in my past. I remember piling books into my forts or sitting up on the roof taking my recent tomes and devouring them in the afternoon sun. Entering the house of my youth showed me that the blueprint for the rest of my life was laid right there in the walls of that old home.

~For Lynn, writing is not only a passion it is the way to make sense of the world. I write almost daily at lynnsmusings.blogspot.com