Random Memories

[Ginger]

I remember getting lost in a hotel in Japan. I was eight, on a vacation with my family. We didn't have bathrooms in our rooms, and someone came in at night and rolled out thick futons for us to sleep on. It was a luxurious hotel, but not in a western way. I had to pee, and insisted on going by myself, but got lost down the long hallways, and was so frightened, I hid behind a large potted plant. Finally, I saw my dad coming down the hall, his raincoat over his pajamas, calling my name, and I ran out to him, and wasn't in trouble.

[Ginger]

I remember riding bikes with another girl in my neighborhood. We were in the third grade, and were going really fast when she crashed her bike somehow along the curb. Something white was coming out of her knee, and she was crying hard. I helped her hobble up to her family's front door, hopping on one leg, her arm slung over my shoulders, and then, instead of just going in, I rang the bell. Her mother came to the door, and looked puzzled, then looked down at her daughter's leg and screamed. She scooped her daughter up, and slammed the door in my face.

[Boots13]

I remember being 8 ,9 or so? I wanted to fly! Not tree squirrel flying but the Superhero kind of flying. Where you’d take a running leap, catch air and with one clenched fist punching through the air to go fight bad guys and save pretty girls.

Practice, I had to practice. At least that much I knew. I took a towel for my cape and tied it around my neck. I got my tennis shoes on for traction and figured I better wear a helmet, just in case my engines sputtered. And a parachute. ..I needed a parachute, but a pillowcase would work.
I put the helmet on and everything went dark. I couldn’t see, my little pea-head was wayyy too small so I stuffed some rags in there and then I couldn’t figure out how to fasten it so I tied a knot. Perfect fit.

I climbed up on the fence and then hoisted myself to the shed roof . The helmet kept falling forward and turning and spinning. I figured it’d be ok… I was on top of the world on the roof. I stared off to the distant horizon, almost to the end of the block. All clear, I was ready!

I took the edge of the pillowcase in both hands. I’d raise it over my head if I needed it… and I practiced with my pillowchute as I backed my paces away from the edge. Everything check…it’s a go… and I RAN !

The helmet turned sideways on my head…I couldn’t see!

And then I tripped …and fell off the roof.


KA-THUD !

Cant breathe, still cant breathe, STILL CANT BREATHE… ok, air…breathing.

The next jump was wayyyy better.
I took the helmet off…

[Kätzchen]

I remember a camping trip that our family went on, one summer years ago: Our family met up with my dad's twin brother (and his wife, Mary) and we camped at a park that seemed very deep in the forest. Upon our arrival and after getting the tents set up and the camp fire going, the sun had already gone down and it was eerily quiet - but I could hear the roar of the surf of the ocean, even though it seemed far away, and I could hear the subtle noise of the forest, which permeated the atmosphere around our camp. Anyway, my dad and his twin brother, chief cooks for both of our families, were busy trying to cook something for all of us to eat. As I remember it, I didn't want to just hang around watching my brothers and my other sister re-enact every sibling dispute possible in their entire lives; so my mother's big idea, for me, was to suggest that I go walking around the path that encircled the park campsites. So I did just that; except I think I must have been walking for what seemed hours and during that walk around the campsite, I became terribly anxious about losing my sense of direction and where my family was because, as I remember it, my mother saw me in tears and according to her, after having walked past my own family for what seemed a thousand times, she came out and grabbed me by the arm as I was passing by my family again and I was so grateful that my mother did that! I thought I was lost forever and I was terribly hungry.

[Tommi]

K.D. Lang singing Crying as she walked onto the darkened stage. No band, no orchestra, two songs with just her pure voice, then the show of a lifetime.

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by Tommi

K.D. Lang singing Crying as she walked onto the darkened stage. No band, no orchestra, two songs with just her pure voice, then the show of a lifetime.

Speaking of K.D. Lang, I remember going to hear her in concert in SF for the first ever. She has already been a successful artist for many years and now I finally get to see her. The concert was great but what I will always remember is the K.D. Lang performed the entire concert in her bare feet.

[PoeticSilence]

I remember when I was four, five, and six, my mother took me to ballet lessons. I have no idea how they afforded it because we were very poor. I remember that she would drop me off early and I'd look at all of the pictures on the walls of ballerinas, maybe some of them were Degas copies, but I just couldn't believe how perfect they all looked. The first year I had used ballet slippers, but the second year I got a brand new pair, pink, with a small gold-coloured ballerina charm on the strap. I also got a little case to keep them in with my leotard and tights. I took my classes very seriously, but would never practice outside of the studio. I wouldn't even talk about it to my friends or family. During my third year I told my mother I didn't want to take ballet anymore, and when she asked why, I said ballet teachers have the worst posture and I don't want to have a bent back. The real issue was that back then I was making sure to pray to God every night that if He would make me a real boy I would never do anything bad again in my life. I believed He was testing me. (Ballet was a "girl thing" and my mom was always trying to push me into "girl things" like ballet, being a stewardess, a nurse, playing with dolls etc)

[Ginger]

I remember reaching up for my dad's hand, how huge it felt to me. I remember him calling out when he came through the door every night, Hello the house!

[Nat]

I remember another Natalie - the roommate and lover of my dad and stepmom for a time. I was maybe 8 years old and she was a musician, tough, with short blond hair. She sang and played the guitar. I remember one night going to see her perform, going into a dark room behind a dark wooden door and seeing her there bathed in a bright light, singing and playing, full of grace.

I remember waking up before the adults, tiptoeing into the living room, carefully putting her guitar in my lap, attempting to sound out something pretty, but mostly just holding the guitar and enjoying the magic feeling of imagining being able to play it and sing under a spotlight in a dark room. I remember liking her guitar picks, remember the feel of them in my hands.

And I remember after she moved out, she arranged once to pick me up and spend the day with me. I didn't know it was goodbye, and maybe she didn't either. She picked me up in an old bug without seatbelts. We went to the toy store and got bags to color and return for a small amount of money. We went out to some commune where bees were kept and children ran barefoot and we visited an old man who lived in a school bus. he gave me a hawk feather wound at its base with leather and beads.

Years later I heard her on the local public radio station. I found her cd at a local record store. I listened to it a lot in my early twenties. She was to me an unanswered question. She was family for a time. She became an absence and then even her absence eventually dissolved to a point where only the slightest residue remains of her in my memory.

[Ginger]

Being so small, reaching up for my dad's hand. Holding his hand in ICU, and its still so much bigger than mine.

[Ginger]

Third grade, left my glasses in the bathroom at school and they were thrown in the trash by mean girls. Telling my dad when I got home, somehow blaming myself, and his automatically being on my side, his loud twangy voice: That wasn't very nice was it? Feeling so much better.