my imagination

when i was little, lets say early elementary,  i can remember getting in trouble and being sent to my room.  i had a little brother which meant if i was sent to my room then so was he.  this memory is after the divorce.  i can remember only 1 time when my father was in that house and he was asleep on the sofa.  after that one time that i remember i don't remember ever seeing him in that house again.  hmmm.  makes me stop and think; i never looked at it that way before.  but still.  we were little. and i would sit in the doorway of my bedroom and look down the hall straight into my brother's room.  i remember how much he played and played while we were "in trouble" and confined to our rooms.  i remember sitting there and wondering how he could PLAY.  it was like it never phased him to be sent to his room.  it didn't matter.  he just kept PLAYING.  and i would just sit there in my doorway.  i'm sure that as many cars and trucks that he had i had just as many dolls and accessories for them.  but i would just sit in my doorway.  and watch.  it wasn't until later on in my life and after i had cameron that i realized i didn't have an imagination.  i didn't know how to PLAY with cameron as he grew before my very eyes.  but somehow he did.  and there i was.  nothing.  i was a housewife and mother.  my house was immaculate but my imagination wasn't.  cameron's father was never home and when cameron was in school i was alone all day.  and most of the time cameron and i were alone until late in the evening.  so there i was in my late twenties and i had to teach myself imagination.  i look back at that little girl sitting on the hardwood floor.  in that doorway.  lost.  i don't remember what i did after we could come out of our rooms.   

this little girl

i have this picture.  its of a little girl.  she has on a pair of saddle oxfords.  its one of those pictures thats just really random.  out of place.  i think this because back then people posed for a picture.  including the kids.  people usually lined up, in stages.  big folks in the back and the smaller in the front.  and, rarely, if ever, did anyone really, and i mean really, smile.  but this little girl looked "caught."  like she wasn't suppose to be sitting there.  she's sort of hanging/sitting half on, half off a sofa with one leg dangling.  duncan-pfife i think.  and probably covered in clear plastic.  i recognize the expression immediately.  the look that seems to be always on my face.  i have bangs with a not quite shoulder length bob hair cut.  my hair is very dark.  but not black.  and my hand is raised up to my lips as if i had a secret.  little did i know from that moment in time there was a secret.  and secrets can be swept under the rug.  in my mind i can see a woman standing on the porch.  she's got a rug hung out and she's beating the dust and dirt out of it with a broom handle.  but, no matter how hard she beats that rug she knows that secret won't come out.  

a decision

i have put the cart before the horse.

this blog has had an extreme start and stop process.  a couple of years ago i realized that all around me people were talking about "blogs" and building their sites, etc.  so i jumped on the band wagon.  i'm still not very savvy with this kind of thing.  i've poked and prodded.  but i finally got the layout i could work with.  after all of that stress i took a stab at "blogging" and wrestling with just what to blog about.  i jumped around the globe (i suppose) and read what others were talking about.  what they were selling.  what their passions were.  i felt, and still do, so intimidated because i didn't have a specific thing to write about so i chose to just start talking about stuff.  then i stopped.  life was moving fast and i had other priorities.

now i'm back with a purpose.  for years i have written.  and written.  and written.  dare i say composed. 

so i have decided that i do have a passion.  what i remember.

from this point i will tell you what i remember...

what i remember

i don't remember much about my childhood.  maybe its a blessing.  i don't remember birthday parties.  but i know i had one.  my first.  i have a small black and white of me sitting on a table in a pretty little dress in front of a birthday cake.  its a sweet picture.  i remember one christmas at my mother's house.  my brother and i are sitting in front of the christmas tree.  my mother fussed at me for making a silly face while she was trying to capture our picture in our christmas pjs.  i suppose thats why i always have christmas pjs to open on christmas eve.  i won't let go of that tradition.  i remember kindergarden.  the lady that ran it was named mrs weems.  i can remember being there.  like flashes.  we were all sitting at tables.  we must have been coloring pictures.  my stomach hurt so i stood up.  i just stood there.  and the inevitable happened.  the humiliation i felt from my mother was much worse than the embarrassment i felt in front of the other children.  i remember being walked up the steps into the attached home.  her housekeeper, i suppose, had me undressed, cleaned up and in clean clothes that did not belong to me.  i remember the car ride home and the paper sack that carried the offending clothes.  another flash.  my mother has taken me to kindergarden.  it was nap time.  i remember being told if i was quiet i could go outside and play.  i must have had a doctors appt.  i remember standing at the fence.  the courtyard was actually surrounded by a wall with a fence atop the stone wall.  i was holding onto the fence crying.  i wanted her to come back.  i wasn't quiet.