I Remember

The following is something I wrote for an online writing workshop (http://forums.about.com/ab-freelncwrit2/messages?redirCnt=1)

It is mine, I wrote it. It is posted there, it is now posted here. I just want that to be clear. It was an exercise that has struck a chord with me, and I felt that it deserved to be here too.

Anyway, it is my blog, and I can blog if I want to!

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I Remember:

I remember being a child. Not just my childhood in general, but actually being a young child, of 3, 4 and 5 years of age. I remember how things smelled and how things tasted, how tall everything looked, and how very big my world was.

I remember the time I lived on a farm with my parents, who boarded horses. I remember my Mom and Dad each having a horse, and I remember having a pony. I have since learned that the pony was not our pony, but a stray that had wandered over from a neighbouring farm. Nonetheless, that pony, Chum, will forever be mine in my mind.

I remember times when I could lean back against the whitewashed fence, and suddenly I would be flying. I can't remember how, but I remember doing it. I've had a hard time over the years convincing my mother that I'm not just remembering a dream that I had. In reality it doesn't matter, the fact remains: when I was 3, I could fly.

I remember one night, after a sunny day of playing outdoors, cuddling up to one particularly peculiar bear while my mother read to me from a Mother Goose storybook, and I remember a sudden change coming over her face and the scream that she let out. I also remember the moment that I realized that a big black spider was crawling out from the seam around the neck of that peculiar teddy bear. I remember my mother's denial of that event every time I have brought it up since, but always with a humorous glint in her eye. "That never happened!" she says but I can see that she remembers it clearly.

I remember the odd feeling I would get in my nose from being in the back seat of the car, stuck back there with my brother, whenever we would go on long road trips. It was perhaps a version of carsickness, coupled with the stale smell of second hand smoke and the strain on my eyes from reading in the backseat of a moving vehicle (something my mother always warned would eventually cause blindness).

But most of all, I remember always feeling like I was part of a unit, with my mother, my father and my brother. We were the Parkers: Glen, Pat, Amanda and Travis. Where we went, we went as a unit, and we found ways to amuse each other and I remember enjoying those times. They are my most vivid memories, and they are ones that I cherish to this day. The are the moments in my life that I will strive to recreate for my own children, always knowing that there will be times that I will have to look at them, with a glint in my eye, and say "That never happened!"