Rain and Memories

Rain.  

Cold, wet, yet satisfying.  

Making me think of every emotion that I push to the back of my head.  

Forcing me to confront my inner most fear…my inner most love…my inner most desires.  

It’s like an alarm clock waking me up in the split of the night.  

Focusing my eyes on it’s downpour.  

Like the touch of your loves finger tracing the outline of your body.  

It creeps down through your hair….across your flushed cheek….falling off the edge of your world.  

How Beautiful is memory?

How beautiful are the ones that spark memory…without being a part of it…the ones that you could love one day….

MEMORY NUMBER ONE:

Fort Bragg: 1992-1995

Between the months leading up to my entrance in kindergarten through the beginning part of second grade, I lived in Fort Bragg California.  My  memories…

I remember having what we called “hotel” nights.  We would buy chips, and soda, and crackers, and cheese and meats, and various snacks (just things you would eat at a hotel).  I remember always being so excited for these nights…

I remember the SOS printing press right next to our house.  They always had a recycled paper bin in their building which I would take from.  The sight and feel of blank paper was like Christmas morning to me.  Holding a stack of cardboard paper…streamers…oh my…it was always so exciting.  I used them to paint, to draw, to practice writing.  To this day…when I see a stack of blank white papers…I get excited…just because the potential for what could be created on them is endless…

I remember one day the power went out.  The story “Puretie” down the street was giving away all of their ice cream because it was melting.  I ate so much ice cream in the dark that day.  It was the most delightful feeling.  

I remember always showing off my muscles...and one day my sister took a picture of me, dan, and bill flexing...I was strong hehe..

I remember playing catch with my brother Robert in the park.  I remember he would throw a football so fast and instead of catching it “which I couldn’t” I would put my arm out and let it hit my forearm.  My arm would be completely red after playing with Robert.  

I remember going to the sand dunes.  They were right next to a broken down bridge.  One time I buried my little toy basketball and lost it.  I never found it.  To this day…it is resting in that sand…

I remember losing my best friend “Wolf”.  While building a sand castle…it collapsed on him suffocating him to death.  Death was foreign to me at the time.  I remember going to school and asking kids about Wolf and they didn’t even know he had died.  They just went along with their normal lives….And I remember crying…simply because I wanted to play with my best friend and he wasn’t there any more to play with….

I remember Halloween nights we would go to my Aunt Patty's and she would always give us huge Hershey’s bars….

I remember going to visit Patty she would have a hanging basket with lays potato chips in them and I would always eat them.  we would always have christmas and thanksgiving there too...

I remember making fun of my Aunts huge fat cat

I remember my aunt buying me a bike for Christmas and being so excited…

I remember a night when the whole family was actually together…maybe actually one of the last nights.  We went roller skating.  I remember being so scared to the point of just sitting in the corner and complaining about how I couldn’t do it.  There is a video of me somewhere out there.  And even though I couldn’t skate at all…and I fell down on my butt about fifteen times “hehe” I remember having fun.

I remember playing with my friend in the park.  It was right after a big Spanish music festival.  We found a purse behind the porty potties…So we told my parents and they called the cops…what they don’t know…My friend and I took the change out of the purse and made elaborate plans to buy fake tattoos with it.  We found a bag of what I thought was tobacco and also little papers…my parents being smokers, I realized what they were for.  We tried to roll up cigarettes and smoke them but the lighter was child proof..hehe…good thing…because I’m pretty sure that wasn’t tobacco…When the cop asked me about finding the purse I had to tell him we found nothing in it and that my friend had “accidentally” flushed the girls license down the toilet…hehe…wow

I remember playing baseball in the park.  We had a strange version of the game where we only had one base…I remember sliding into the base one day and twisting my ankle and I remember my brother Don picking me up and carrying me in his arms back to the house…Looking back I took that for granted…

I remember having small yard sales so we could get money for treats.  We mostly just sold some junk we had in our rooms.  We did sell a lot of comic books though.  We had a business plan.  Our next door neighbor ‘s “Chris Hoppinin” dad worked for a comic book store.  He would always send his kid the newest and greatest comics.  Christ was so amazed by these comics that he would give us his shitty mickey mouse and other stupid comics.  We ended up selling these for 5 cents a piece.  We made bank.  Chris would get jealous and try to sell his comics but no one wanted to buy them…He eventually stopped giving us his old comics…

I remember sharing a room with my brother's Dan and Bill.  We had a tape recorder which we used to make radio shows all the time.  We would also make crazy forts and play in them all day.  I remember always planning out ways we could attack our other brother Don when he came in the room...We would call him in...I would throw a blanket on his head from the top bunk...then Dan and bill would pummel him with balls...ahhh good times...

I remember my brother Bill reading The Boxcar Chilren to me at night...

I remember pogs

I remember Easter...

I remember the teachers aid at school with two missing fingers

I remember watching power rangers before school

I remember playing basketball in the park…

I remember…I remember…I remember…