Saturday, November 29, 2008

There's A Tree In My Laundry Basket

I climb into things.
As a young girl I'd grab my book and small white bag of nickle and quarter candy, climb up a tree, sway with the breeze and get lost in my story. The neighborhood noise as a seldom commercial in my tree climbing, book reading land.

Or when my mom would dump out the clothes from the yellowish brown laundry basket and let me climb into it, take one of my dad's knee or ankle wraps, freshly clean and use it as a pulley or rope, and she'd pull me around the room. Or when she'd reel me in with those wraps, only they were fishing rods and we, my siblings and I, were the fish.

Climbing Into Things Always brought me created memories.

So, I climbed into things as a girl.
Played Hide and Go Seek-climbed up, behind, over, or in something.
Played Ghost & Graveyard-climbed there too--when I was the ghost that is.
Played War with the neighborhood heartthrobs=what my sisters and block over girlfriends thought about the group of young lads we'd hang out with when we were just little girls ourselves-I'd climb into things then too, up, over, around-
Especially when they were raiding our Cabbage Patch Kid Playhouse.



Flash Back to a few years ago before Benjamin, Sullivan, Jackson, Brian.


Before my life became truly real.
All the rest of my past, a prologue to the 'now steps' that I walk.
Now, having arrived at that balanced point in my life, I don't want to leave.
Flashing back years ago to a 5 bedroom home that a group of my closest friends and I lived at, up in Barrington Illinois, on an old Country road is where another climb memory was created. We'd hang out on Sunday nights, and as the bar scene grew less important for those of us in relationships, or for those of us that wrote MS for Men Suck, we'd begin to hang out much more on weekends, instead of going out to the bars. Probably because we had what we thought was zilch for money, but nevertheless, we'd drink, be silly, smoke and choke, make snacks, and then play hide and seek.


I climbed even then.
A girl about 23, climbing.
Into Kitchen cabinets and they-my friends- would get sick of looking for me.
I can't remember how many times we played Hide and Seek, there are so many other memories of that time, in that house, but I recall like it was this afternoon, hide and seek with them.




I climb into things.


Period.
Still try to actually.


Seeing the picture below reminded me of it all, and yet again, although this time I didn't physically climb into something, watching him took me right back to all those memories I have that I just finished writing up above.


It gave me the chance to feel those memories versus just think them. You ever do that? Do you look at your memories and recall who it was, what the story was, what they're names were, the dates of things, how old you were?


Or can you look at those memories and remember exactly how you felt at that time, and to be able to physically feel that emotion now as it surfaced from slide shows of your memory within your head?



Seeing Sullivan climbed me back to that point and there's nothing I love more then adding an old emotional memory to a new one. A piece complete with the full emotions of the past now merged with the present.




Pretty Cool.
Climbing into things still bring created memories.




14 comments:

KathyA said...

Nothing sweeter than a child sleeping! Even in a laundry basket.

Moohaa said...

How sweet is that picture!! What memories. My kids are climber-inners too. We just took a pic of Alex playing turtle in our laundry baskets. Of course, he's older so we tortured him by duct-taping him in. lolol... only for a couple minutes. He loved it.

Big hugs and loves!

Cheryl said...

What sweet memories. And there's your Sullivan, in your memory.

jAMiE said...

How darling is that...thanks for sharing your memories too!

happyone said...

I feel memories like they were happening again.
I wish I could put things into words like you do.
The picture of Sullivan is one great picture. My son used to fall asleep in odd places too! :-)

Rick Rockhill said...

how sweet, I enjoyed this.

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

Kathy, Cheryl, Kelly, JAime, Happy one: Thank you very much!
It's a great memory for sure, isn't it?
It makes me glad for this sort of "online" diary, so that my boys will be able to look back someday and read about my memories I had about them.

Happy Almost End of Weekend.
Elizabeth

Anonymous said...

Story hits home.....Neighborhood heart-throbs?!?!?!?!?

austere said...

:)

Climbing into kitchen cabinets? Really?

Susan's Snippets said...

CB - This past month we (family) spent hours going thru pictures in getting ready for our Mom's 70th Birthday...and talk about memories...I can look at a picture and almost smell where I was at.

How wonderful that God gave us incredible minds to remember it all.

nothing is too tall

Anonymous said...

When I see my kids do something weird that I used to do, it feels like I can't breathe for a minute. It's like this micro-second where I get confused about if I'm them or if they're me. Do you remember those things they used to use on overhead projectors where there would be all these clear sheets with different pictures on them, but when you laid them all on top of each other they created a picture in themselves? That's what I think of kids, family, people.. we're all parts of a bigger picture. But the parent/kid thing, there's a lot more blending in the shades where discernment of identity can at times be confusing.
YOU remember better than anyone what it felt like to be a kid. You are amazing!
AD

Tink said...

This is one of my favorite posts of yours yet... And that's saying a lot. Beautifully said!

Brad said...

That's very cool - kind of like your kids keeping you 'real' as another kid. Awesome.

Portia said...

So he gets it from you eh? He looks so cute sleeping in his little basket...and pretty comfy too:)