I Remember….

A friend of mine, in her blog, posted about writing memories, taken from a technique by Joe Brainard, called “I remember.” I loved her blog. It evoked much emotion, so, in honor of the end of summer, I post the following childhood memories:

I remember waking up after the last day of school, in my in Lake Clear, NY, bed, thinking…summer.

I remember how the early morning sun looked, in all its golden glory, as it sprayed through the trees and splashed upon the lawn and truck and cabin and barn on our property.

I remember the way the crushed gravel of the driveway sounded and felt as I walked Converse-sneakered feet across it.

I remember looking down at the lake across the house from us. Watching the whitecaps during the storms and windy weather. I remember one day, my Forest Ranger dad, seeing someone in trouble on the lake, rushed down to save him.

I remember exploring the thick woods behind our house. Getting lost in my imagination in all those hardwoods and firs. Alien and girls and Star Trek on my mind. I frequently roamed alone and aimlessly among the trees.

I remember my dad showing me how to use the rototiller for the first time, and thinking how silky and cool all that churned up dirt looked.

I remember chopping wood. When my Dad first showed me how to use an ax…and how grown up it made me feel. I loved chopping wood.

I remember stacking cords of wood. Cords and cords of wood. Everywhere.

I remember my absolute love for climbing trees! Weaving and twisting and wiggling my way up through their whirls and branches! The feel of the branches and pitch and sap. The sound the my clothes rubbing against the trunk and limbs. The jagged little snapped-off limbs. Branches hitting and swiping at my face and body. Looking out over the landscape so far below. Closing my eyes at the very top as I hugged the tree and became one with it, feeling the wind in my face and listening to it breeze past my ears….

I remember playing Civil War soldiers with one of my brothers, Chris, back by that huge boulder in our driveway. I remember punching the crap out of each other with our boxing gloves in the same location. I remember winning.

I remember Dirk Ewan.

I remember Mrs. Lereaux.

I remember Mom taking us to the trailer park, by the airport, to visit her friends. I remember all four of us kids learning to ride bikes there. I remember never having used training wheels, because Chris, Greg, and Marilyn needed them. I remember the utter freedom learning how to bike lent to my life from that point on. I remember that day.

I remember chasing fireflies at night.

I remember stargazing with my dad’s ex-Navy binoculars.

I remember paddling up Fish Creek at night, and watching and smelling the campfires and shadows and muffled conversations of the camps we passed…I remember feeling I was a 1600s explorer….

I remember looking out over the Adirondacks from fire towers with my dad and Chris.

I remember barbeques out back with my family, at the fireplace my dad built, in 1969. Eating at the picnic table on the platform my dad built. I remember following the smoke from the fireplace curling up into the air, and into the branches of the nearby spruce tree where our tree house was, wondering what I would be doing when I was forty. God, how I remember that day.

I remember playing around in a smoldering burn barrel out back by the crabapple tree. I remember my eyes becoming so overcome and pained with smoke, my mom had to take me inside and plaster my eyes with cold tea bags. I remember wondering if I was going to go blind.

I remember cutting my feet in the lake one day, my grandfather having to carry me back up the house.

I remember walking up back one day and finding this huge snake in the process of swallowing a large something. I remember standing, there, just watching it in utter fascination.

I remember water balloon fights with Greg, Chris, and Marilyn. I remember rigging up a really cool water balloon trap that involved a door, string, and a razor blade. I remember getting up on the steep roofs of the house (we had three sets) and bombarding them all from above. I remember getting caught by my grandparents and catching hell when dad came home.

I remember Chris and I rooting around in cedar hedges on one of my sister’s birthdays, and stirring up a ground wasp nest. We did our best to outrun the little bastards. Oh, yeah. We got the crap stung out of us. I remember it hurt. Really bad.

I remember learning how to mow the lawn and loving it. The smell of cut grass, the stain of its green on my sneakers, and later, on the hood of the cutting blades of the tractor. The sound of the mower. The bugs, the heat, the humidity, the summer sun. To this day, I love mowing the lawn, whether from childhood memories or the cathartic joy of simply being under a warm summer sun.

I remember….