Thursday, August 14, 2008

Thursday Thirteen #12.... memories


I'm at a loss as to what to write about today..maybe it's because I've only ingested one cup of coffee, maybe its because I didn't sleep well last night (darn stiff neck!), Maybe the zucchini is doing something to my brain chemistry...is there such a thing as zucchini toxicity? Too much zucchini related food can be hazardous to your brain function :-P At any rate...I'm at a loss...I've tossed around a few ideas..none of them stuck...so I figured I'd just throw random stuff out there about memories I have from my childhood.

1. I have some very early memories. I know scientists say you're not supposed to remember stuff before the age of ...what is it..3? But I have very specific memories of way before 3 so that theory is complete bumpkiss in my book..and if I can have early memories like that...I'm sure TONS of people do as well..One specific memory I have is of me riding in the car and my mother saying I had a "load in my pants" which for some reason I thought meant I had sand in my pants :-P I remember thinking in pictures and seeing a pile of sand. I was completely potty trained by the time I was 2 so this had to be before then.
2. My mom brought me on a cross country trip when I was two out to Colorado and back with her parents. We went to visit relatives. I remember walking up to their house..and the wrought iron stair rail and seeing the mountains in the distance.
3. This one is kinda weird...I remember being less than a year old and floating above my body for a split second...My parents had put me in the back room at my grandmothers house, I must have fallen asleep in the car because she put me on the bed and just unzipped my fuzzy pink and white jacket, not taken it off. Anyway..I remember floating..looking down seeing myself and the room and thinking with the mind not of a one year old..but someone much older, and growing up with that memory. And it IS a memory..not a thought, not an idea..a solid memory. It always has been. This one incident was and is the corner stone of much of my spirituality. It's the thing that is always in my face, so to speak, and tells me that there is something more.
4. I remember being 6 or 7 and being at my grandmothers in the late spring or early summer and collecting a whole bunch of tad poles. I had them in a little wash bin on her porch and the neighbors daughter..who was 3 or so...came over and stood in the wash bin and squashed all my tad poles. I really disliked that little girl.
5. That same girl, Tonya, used to follow me everywhere. I rarely saw the mother, she just let her 3 year old out for hours on end in just a diaper. I was an only child, and I was very used to my space, and I really resented having to watch this kid...especially without being asked. One day I was walking into the woods by the house and there were a bunch of raspberry bushes at the entrance. She was following me around, naked except for a diaper again, and as I walked into the woods I told her to stay back, there were pricker bushes..and she followed anyway...yea..she got all scratched up and ran home crying. Her mother called me over (I think this is the only time I remember seeing her) and yelled at me for being irresponsible and I should have known better than to go in there because I knew Tonya would follow. I was only 6 (or 7) so I started crying and ran to my grandmother who marched over and told that woman that I was NOT her daughters babysitter and that she should be keeping a better watch on her.
6. I remember my mom being pregnant and calling me over to put my hand on her stomach and saying "do you feel that?"..but I never did...
7. I also remember her calling (or maybe I called her?) from the hospital and telling me she'd be coming home but the baby wouldn't be...that my sister had died. That it was a girl and her name was Leslie but that she was dead. I was 4.
8. After Leslie died we stayed with my Grandmother and Grandfather for awhile so my Gram could take care of my mom. She had had an emergency cesarean to deliver Leslie, who had a sever form of OsteogenesisImperfecta...or brittle bone disease and was nothing more than skin stretched over cartilage. I remember being told to go upstairs for a nap, and hearing my mom crying downstairs, I think she was in the bathtub or something, and I came down the stairs and my grandmother yelled at me. She was the scary Grandmother, I was always afraid of her.
9. I remember that same grandmother dying a year later...I vividly remember my aunts coming into the house crying and hearing that she had died I threw myself on the couch and put a pillow over my head and when my Mom came over and said "Stacy, Your Grandmother has died" I kept saying "I'm sleeping leave me alone..just leave me alone". I guess two significant deaths that early in my life was just too much for me.
10. After that every time my Other Grandmother would say she was leaving I would start crying and begging her not to go. I thought she was going to die.
11. OH..I remember being 5 and my dad was watching TV and he had lifesavers..assorted flavors...lol..and I had one..a cherry one and I started choking...really badly..and he grabbed me by my ankles and hung me upside down until it came out. Then he banned lifesavers from the house lol.
12. I must have been about 3 or 4 when my Grandmother (not the scary one) had me sing "country roads" to her friends. I knew all the words and would just spontaneously break out singing whenever or wherever...but being asked to sing for people scared me..I was really shy...so i sat under her dining room table and sang for them :-P
13. I was 2 or 3 when I had the rocking chair accident. I had a little hot dog dog named Tiny and I was playing peek a boo with him..he was up on a couch or a window seat..something.and I was on the floor basically doing sit ups playing with him...and i extended too much and my head came down, really hard, on the rocker of a rocking chair and I split my head open.

Wow..I remember A lot..and the more I wrote, the more I remembered....too bad I can't remember minute to minute now :-P
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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy TT and wow you do remember a lot...I can't remember anything before I was 4 years old...lol. #7 & #8 made me sad. Great list and thanks for sharing.
Fellow TT Participant

Gayle said...

I try really hard to remember being young, but I don't. Not even teen years. I try to remember my mom or dad talking to me or if we ever did anything together. The "mind pictures" aren't there. I always wonder why. I like that you can remember the young stuff. That is cool. And they are memories of actual events even if some "expert" says they aren't! Have you read "Bridge Across Forever"? My favorite book. They meet in dreams...hover over their bodies attached by a silver thread. Good book. Great post!

Firefly Mom said...

Like you, I also have a ton of memories from when I was 3 and younger. The funny thing is, I don't have any memories of my dad (my parents divorced when I was an infant) until I was about 6 - and I saw him every other weekend.

Anonymous said...

What a lot of interesting, and painful, memories you have, Stace. My heart aches for your losses as a child. I hope your life has been much happier since.

Jaden Paige said...

Cute pic, and WOW, you do remember a lot! I can't recall much before I was about 6. But I have a horrible memory even to this day, so that's no surprise... lol. Happy WW!

Anonymous said...

My husband always says that thing about no memories before the age of three/four or whatever... I think it's bunk too. But I don't have as many distinct memories as you!

Kimberly said...

I can remember the layout of our first house and my grandmothers boarding house. She was in charge of these little apartments that use to be part of a GIANT house built in Akron, Ohio, during the big rubber industry days with Firestone and Goodyear.

Very cool that you can remember so many tidbits of your early years.