Remembering

I remember the first time I realized my dad was growing old. I could see new red lines in his eyes. His once clear grey eyes were now shiny pools of liquid framed by thick, heavy, lashless lids. The redness in his face blending together with the redness in his eyes. He looked cloudy, the sharpness of his gaze had dimmed. His face looked dry and tired but his step was still strong, his movements animated. His hands flitted about when he talked. His posture very straight. His gait happy and energetic. He will always spend his life looking at the way the wind carries a leaf, tracking the sunsets and sun rises, and imagining a more idealistic place and time.

I remember as my mom drove me up the driveway on a crisp fall day. My oversized jeans were tucked into my red salavation army cowboy boots and my hair was secured in two skinny braids. My wispy blonde bangs stood straight up in the wind and I clutched my tattered second-hand horseback riding helmet eagerly. The boots were beautiful. The stained hat was perfect. The leaves were shockingly yellow and the sky was impossibly blue. Or at least that's how I remember it.

I remember the smell of the first day of school. New clothes, new erasers, new backpacks, pencil shavings, books, folders, and lunchboxes. The smell of fresh rubber and plastic and construction paper. I itched in stiff new clothes and shoes. And every first day of school is preserved in my mind as sunny, even though I am sure they were not.

I remember hiding. I hid in my closet. Under my bed. In the backyard. In my tree fort. In the dog house. Under the porch. In my clothes hamper. In the crawl space. I was never hiding from anyone and nobody was ever looking for me. They never even knew that I was hiding. The minute I was called I would dash from my secret place quickly and carefully. Never to once be missing, but always hiding. There was something comforting in escaping. Something special about the places I escaped to. And I could sit for hours in my hiding spot. Never bored or lonely. Not even a book to amuse me. Just the freedom to think alone and the wonder of feeling disappeared.

I remember rocking on the porch late on a summer evening. It was late at night but it felt like early morning. One leg crossed the other dangling, I gently rocked the chair and watched the strange, muted sunset. I felt like I could sit there forever, a green and white cotton blanket wrapped around my shoulders. And the space around me felt so full and comforting that I didn't notice I was alone, or that it was late into the night, and that the tapping of my foot on the porch was the only sound to be heard. It wasn't quiet, or cold, and it wasn't isolating. The house behind me faded into the background and all I saw was the gentle and subtle movements of the green leaves on the birch tree, the fullness of the clouds, the emptiness of neighborhood streets, and the slow loss of daylight. Maybe it was the quiet that was so consuming, but I was full and content.