Young Memories

In my earliest memory, I lost my shoe hiking in the snow. A shiny black shoe with a little snap strap across the front. I asked my parents about the shoe. Why didn’t we go back for it? How did I walk the rest of the way with only one shoe? Why don’t I remember being cold? I didn’t get a straight answer. It might have been a dream. To this day, I can’t say for certain. I was too young to know the difference between memories and dreams.

My parents are avid climbers, and we hiked a lot. While I waited for my parents and their friends to climb, I’d make sculpers because I couldn’t pronounce sculptures. I made beautiful formations out of snow and ice. I made a chair from carabiner chains. I’d get sticks and hit trees and rocks as hard as I could until the sticks broke. I loved hitting things with sticks.

I learned about wormwood. When I removed a mundane stick’s bark, it revealed intricately carved designs, like a magic wand. The worms carved the paths as they ate their way through the wood. Miraculous. I scoured the forests for wormwood.

My parents’ friend taught me to flip the bird without telling me what it meant. He thought it would be a funny joke. When my mom found out, she told me I was only allowed to flip off that friend. From then on, that was how I greeted him.

I remember learning to whistle. Or trying, at least. My parents would whistle, and I burned with jealousy. I sat on a giant boulder, among other giant boulders, trees, and moss, next to a giant cliff. Everything was giant then. I told my mom I could make a bird sound, too. Then I hooted like an owl for a very long time until I was sure no one was impressed. Then, I crawled away and practiced whistling alone while my parents climbed. I got poison ivy.

I remember The Gorge. We climbed down old ladders into a forgotten pit in the earth. It was filled with abandoned mines, ruins, and old broken things. Buzzing from the power transfer station filled the air with power. It cracked and surged. Electricity hung above the trees and overgrowth, surging behind concrete. That majestic beast sleeping in the depths mesmerized me. To this day, I obsess over power transfer stations.

I remember long drives through the desert. Endless power lines. Activists lobby against power lines running through the deserts. The lines cut through the scenes of natural beauty. I support their view in theory, but deep inside, I maintain a profound love for power lines. They remind me of the long, meditative drives of my childhood. They’re neverending and connect everything together. They link our tiny desert town to civilization like a thread held by a hero as they enter the maze, knowing it will lead them back home.

I had a theory on one of those drives. I was sure of its truth. I decided that we kept water in towers so that airplanes could come and load it up, then fly into the sky to put the water in the clouds. That was how we got rain. I told my dad this theory. He tried to explain how clouds and rain really worked. I did not believe him. My theory seemed more plausible.

I had another theory: that bugs could tell the future. They were so small, moved so slowly, and were stepped on, swatted, and smushed all the time. Surely, no bug could survive in the world without precognitive abilities.

My parents got divorced when I was young. I don’t remember, not even how I felt about it all, but I remember two dreams. They made me sad and frightened. I’m certain I had them around the time they separated. I remember them to this day. They aren’t dreams for sharing.

I’m fairly sure this wasn’t a dream: It was night. We drove a long way. We stopped in the middle of nowhere with tall stones or walls. Within them sat a little grill or pedestal. A fake egg lay on it. There were adults. They talked. They might have argued, but I don’t remember. I was annoyed and unhappy, though that could have been unrelated. I suspect this might have been one of the first times my parents exchanged me after they separated. I’m not sure, though. Just as likely it was a random road trip. I just remember confusion and discontent.

I stand on the porch of the mobile home we lived in when I was born. I wore purple overalls with no shirt and scratched at my chicken pox. My room was on the opposite side from my parents. We had a fireplace and an old wooden coffee table with a trough around the top edge that got gunk stuck in it. I spent a lot of time digging the gunk out. I sorted my candy on that table by color. I ate them in order so that I had the same number of each color. Then, I ate one of each color until they were gone. I saved the blue for last.

Our garage was bigger than our house. It was more like a warehouse, but we called it the garage. My dad made a climbing gym in the garage. He lined the floor with 2 layers of mattresses. He built huge overhangs and a cave where one could climb upside down. All my parents’ friends came to climb there. They made a swing for me that hung from the ceiling. It was so long, and I swung so far. But even if I fell, I fell on mattresses.

Behind the overhangs, in the rafters, we kept all our junk. Our attic. It scared me. It was dirty and dangerous. I feared cutting myself on a nail or tripping on an exposed board. I never went back there without my dad.

We had a wall clock with no glass. My dad went to work in the garage and told me he’d come back and play with me when this hand pointed to that number. I waited a few minutes, and then I’d get a broom handle, move the hands on the clock, and fetch my dad.

I had a net full of stuffed animals that hung above my bed. If I poked the net from the bottom, they’d all spill out the sides and tumble on top of me.

I had a red wagon. I filled it with cinder blocks, put spiders and bugs in the holes, and made a bug zoo. I made a lot of bug friends. There wasn’t much else in the desert to befriend.

Except my next-door neighbor. She was older than me. I’m not sure we were friends, but I’d go to her house sometimes. They had a pond. I’d wander around their pond, even when they weren’t home. I tried to sleep over at her house once, my first sleepover. I didn’t like it. I woke up and went home in the night. Walked through the moonlit desert.

I remember lying in my bed, my dad next to me, keeping me company as I fell asleep. Except I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned. He told me that if I stopped moving, I’d fall asleep. I tried, lying as still as I could. But all I could think about was how uncomfortable I was. I eventually fell asleep anyway.

I remember playing with my toys in the tub. I had stackable plastic cups that I’d pour water into and out of. I learned about volume. I had a Gumby and a pony pal Pokey too. They went on adventures during bathtime. I remember the first bath I took by myself. My dad told me I was old enough. I knew that meant I was growing up. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t complain.

I sometimes wonder how many of these memories are true.