What I Remember…..

I remember my Lola, …….vaguely. I remember I felt warmth from her. I remember her smile for me.

I remember vaguely the Tenement Building I lived in with Lola.

I remember another girl who lived somewhere in the same Tenement Building. I remember being in her apartment one evening and I remember how she wanted me to kiss her like the grownups kiss. She tried showing me but I don’t think she thought I was doing it right. (Such a bizarre thing to remember)

I remember laying on the floor to sleep for the night with the Aunts. I remember seeing a few little flashing lights flying above me and I told one of the aunts that had been laying down close to me about seeing them and she told me that they were little luck dragons and that I should try and catch one and I would always have good luck. To this day I can still picture her having caught one and putting it into a cabinet that had a glass door and I remember seeing that little dragon glowing behind that glass door.

***** Many years later, I would take a nasty fall and as I got up from that fall, I saw stars floating about my head. Little flashing lights twinkling in and out and it dawned on me. They weren’t little luck dragons that my aunt said were flying about me!! They were stars from either having laid down too fast or they could have been just lightening bugs. In my minds eye, I still see the glowing little luck dragon behind that glass door of the cabinet.

I remember being brought down to the waters in the early morning light. Was it to fish? Was it to get cleaned up? That memory is so, so vague it could maybe just be a made up thing in my head, but the thought of that beautiful morning with the red/orange sun just starting to peek up from the water, it still makes me want to wake up very early some mornings to catch that early morning sun light.

I remember Aunt Josie yelling at me a lot. It made me feel like she didn’t like me all that much. And then I remember her sitting me down at a table and letting me have bread with sugar sprinkled on top and I thought maybe she does like me a little.

I remember a wonderful, fun afternoon with the grown ups having a massive water fight with buckets of water being thrown all around and at people. I remember the laughter of it. In my head, I can see a woman across the Tenements leaning over one of the balconies to throw a bucket of water down to the lower floor to drench someone below. I can almost feel the laughter I felt seeing it. It brings a smile to my face, that memory.

I remember one afternoon, making a circular turn around Aunt Cora. She had braided pigtails and I remember a whole bunch of people sitting and standing around her as she was kneeling on the rice covered ground. I remember she knelt on that rice for such a long time with her arms outstretched holding onto two lit candlesticks with the melting wax spilling over and onto the backs of her hands. I remember her looking straight ahead and at no one. She looked so strong, determined and as if in prayer but a tear was escaping down her right cheek. I remember thinking that it looked like some kind “right of passage” and thought to myself…. “ I hope I don’t have to do that ritual when I get to be her age”.

I remember a very gentle boy who made me laugh by attaching clothes pins to the top and bottom of his lips. He moved his lips and made clacking sounds with them. I wanted to try too but he said I would hurt myself and wouldn’t let me have them.

I remember this giant white man painting my little nails red. Why? I don’t know why. It’s such a strange memory.

I remember going to an office and sitting next to a man who had a little Monkey for a pet. I remember that little monkey making funny noises and hopping all about the man’s shoulders and the window behind him. I wanted a pet monkey too.

I remember skipping along in front of that giant white man and my mother up a ramp and I was happy. I remember skipping back down towards them because I wanted to have another one of those stick cookies he was eating but my mother gave me that look she gives me when I doing something she does not approve of. That looks always makes me back down. I just wanted another cookie but she quietly said to me, to let him have the last one. He didn’t understand that I had been yelled at to “not bother” him. He didn’t even ask me if I wanted another cookie or even offer up a piece of the last one to me or my mother. He just gobbled up that last one. I remember pouting and being mad.

I remember being on a plane going somewhere far far away. And then I don’t remember any of them anymore. I remember sitting for too long and I wanted to get up and run and walk and skip. I remember getting a pin of wings from PanAm Airlines.