Tag Archives: childhood memories

Homecoming

Posted on by
8 
He enters through the laundry room,
passes off his domed metal lunch pail,
heavy with the stainless steel thermos that
clips into the top of the box. 

Boots off. Faded denim overalls and wrinkled red
handkerchief dropped onto the dirty clothes pile.
Now in his “suntans”: a khaki shirt and loose-fitting
trousers reminiscent of his wartime uniform. 

At the deep utility sink, water so hot it turns his skin red.
With lava soap and a bristle brush he attacks the 
black tarry substance stuck to his hands and arms. 
Soap lathers up past his elbows. 

Face washed, hat-flattened hair tamed with a 
black plastic pocket comb; only then does he 
enter the kitchen and greet his wife with a kiss. 
Supper is cooked and waiting for him.

It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!

Day Twelve prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.

The Art Lesson

Posted on by
4 
The canvas panel lays before me, blank and pristine.
Or almost pristine. Scuff marked and yellow tinged;  
it's been sitting around for a while.

A horizontal penciled line, not quite centered.
Top portion is the sky. 
Paint it blue, I’m told.

But skies aren’t out-of-the-tube blue on flat canvas.
They’re deep, dappled with clouds sometimes,
softened by invisible breezes at other times.
Troubled by storms, 
subdued by dawn’s tentative tendrils. 
That all comes later, I’m told.

I dab at the blue mound on waxed paper.
Oil or acrylic, I don’t recall.

Mom sits nearby, chatting with her friend
who is -- ostensibly -- here to teach me art.
They gossip – well, the friend does.
Mom listens, jokes, commiserates. Passes judgment.

A large book lies open on the table,
showing step-by-step how to recreate the painting:
an old barn on a rutted dirt road alongside a 
generic, leafless tree. 

Sketch the outlines as illustrated, I'm told.
I don’t want to. 
This is someone else's painting, not mine. 
I don’t know what the barn has seen,
what the tree has felt.

Who traversed the road to carve the ruts,
Where were they headed? 
What did they find upon arrival? 

I put lines on the canvas with a #2 pencil. 
That’s enough for tonight, I’m told.
My mom and her friend barely glance at my work,
make vague plans for a return visit. 
The friend leaves.

The half-blue, scuffed canvas sits on the floor 
in a dark corner of my bedroom closet.
For years. 

When I am forty, I paint skunk cabbage.


It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!

Day Two prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: “write [a] poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.”

To Play or Not to Play

Posted on by
2

Bloganuary daily prompt: What was your favorite toy as a child?

Long story longer.

Art therapy for adults. Sometimes I hated it. Sometimes I loved it. Well, okay, love is a strong word, but sometimes it was insightful. A little insightful. Like if you squinted real hard from across the room at something you’d drawn, you might find a way to interpret the doodling as somehow relevant to your life. The art therapist, peering over shoulders as the patients worked on their projects, would sometimes nod or sigh or smile or give a little “hum” sound at the back of her throat as she walked around the room. All in all, it was kind of creepy.

I preferred the more structured assignments. One’s that didn’t involve jostling with the others for access to a pile of magazines for a collage project, trying to snag something that hadn’t been hacked to pieces by prior collage makers. Then trying to avoid eye contact with that person across the table who’s trying to guilt you into giving them the magazine you chose because out of the entire stack of magazines, that’s the only one that is bound to have the image they need for their masterpiece.

Just keep it simple. Hand me a piece of paper and a crayon and tell me to draw what depression looks like for me. Make sure it’s a black crayon and we’ll be set.

One day at group therapy, there was a large assortment of materials spread over the tables as we entered the art room.

“Today I just want you to play,” the therapist said.  “Use whatever you want to draw, paint, cut patterns out of colored paper, glue photos together as a collage, make something out of pipe cleaners, whatever appeals to you.”

“Play? I’m in this damned program because I’m damned depressed and I’ll be damned if I feel like playing.” That was my thought. I sat there in silence, arms folded in front of me, staring at the clock on the wall. Daring the therapist to try and make me “play.”

“Come on, it’s fun!” exclaimed one overly jubilant woman. Obviously it was time to boot her out of the program. “Just pretend you’re a kid again and play like you did back then.”

“I didn’t play when I was a kid,” I snarled, and I stood up and left the room. Didn’t play as a kid? Where did that come from? Of course, I played. Didn’t I?

I did play. Make believe, storytelling, hide and seek. Mother may I. Red light, green light. Simon says. Operator. Checkers. But none of that came to mind, specifically to my depressed mind. I didn’t remember having fun.

Group therapy ended years ago for me, and thankfully I’m in a much better mental state these days. And yet, faced with the question today as to my favorite toy as a child, my first reaction was. “I didn’t have toys.”

Of course, I had toys. Matchbox cars, bikes, skates, etch-a-sketch, spirograph sets. Balls, dolls, stuffed animals, board games. I’m sure I had lots of toys, but it’s hard to remember.

Living with depression can be like walking around wearing blinders. You don’t have the bandwidth to deal with a whole lot, so you block out a large portion of what is happening. I’m not talking about blocking out memories of traumatic experiences. I mean blocking out all sorts of things, even memories of playing and having fun. And it gets to be habit.

I still have trouble; not a poor memory per se, but I don’t focus enough to memorialize well, if that makes sense. A part of me still thinks it needs the blinders, and so the details get lost. Or the big picture is lost. I don’t know.

All of this to say, if I had a favorite toy as a child, I don’t remember it. But that’s okay. I get to play with my grandkids’ toys now. My favorite? Probably the t-ball set. I can send that plastic baseball over the fence like Hank Aaron! Remember him?