1/7/007 - Memories

Color everything. Define self. Warm relationships. Deepen emotion. Amuse me in moments of zen, while driving alone, taking a long hot shower, swimming laps, or even in those half waking minutes before the rosy dawn, after hitting snooze again, and again.

I remember running away. I was placed with my Aunties, Mabel and Irene Carls, at their farm house on Four Mile Road, down the road from Great Grandpa Carls farm. Parents were busy having another baby...maybe Rick. I got up early as I always do, pulled on my little red boots and started walking down the road in the snow, still dressed in my PJs. They found me of course and dragged me back. Not the first time I ran away or the last.

That time I was three or four. I did not like the taste of their food; it was the tang of their well water. I did not like the smell of the house or the chilly upstairs bedrooms. I wanted my own home, my warm bed and my mommy. We suffered long stints at another Aunties; Alma's farm in Lyons NY. I did not like the taste of their food, the tang of the well water, the smell of the swamp, or my uncle's loud snoring. But it was a change from the long hot summers in Allegany. Made that trip ever summer and got really dehydrated cause I could taste the well water even in Coolaid.

Those summers held some good times and some bad. Picking berries and putting up jam was fun but got eaten alive by mosquitos in the process. I remember sleeping on the screened-in porch at last. That was pleasant. I always enjoy sleeping outside in summer...well anytime really. Paradoxically, it started that last summer of torture at Alma's.

In fact, I think I will move my old daybed out onto the patio this summer; that would be indulgent and harmless fun. All this unfolds and leads up to the nonce. I share one of my precious memories, and I still miss my mommy.