Childhood Memories

Bsd

The rain today struck a memory chord.

El Nino, the weather pattern of my childhood.

Rain, rain, rain.

My block flooded with currents so strong my brother and his friend could almost float down the street.

It rained all winter and all summer and all the time.

I was always surprised when it didnt rain quite that much the following years.

I love rain.

Rain dripping off the ends of my hair down my nose to my fingers clutching the handlebar of the stroller and I am wet! Dripping! And I don't give a damn and how freaking freeing is that?!

Giving up control and just letting it happen.

I wasn't going to have my writing group tonight. My sister is in town, and needs help with the kids, and I was tired (two hours of sleep will do that to you). But Shmuly guilt tripped me into doing it, and I'm glad I did.

It was good! We had a little group, and we wrote, and we read, and I liked what I wrote.

So I'll share.

I had everyone create a childhood memory. It could be for themselves or for a character, but it could not be a real memory.

Here is what I wrote:

In the summer, we would walk to the Central Library, my mother and I, and take the 3 train home. I was a sturdy four year old, but not sturdy enough to walk there and back. I am amazed at my mother's patience, to hike up each long block holding my hand, stopping with me at every bench along Eastern Parkway to say hello to the old black people who sat there. It must have taken us an hour or more to finally reach our destination. But then my mother would get her reward. She would pick out some books for me - the ones by Steven Kellog, with Rosie the cat and the Great Dane whose name I can't remember hidden in each story, were my favorites - and then she would seat me in one of the squishy chairs planted in a square amongst the fiction racks. I would curl up and "read" to myself while she wandered the aisles, always coming back to wave at me and deposit another book on the growing stack beside my chair.

After she was finally satisfied and before I grew bored and fidgety, we would go to the cavernous hall that was the main lobby to check out all of our books. Every time, I would have the urge to shout my name and hear how it would echo, all the way up to the high roof and back down to bounce against the shiny marble floor, the syllables loud and clear at first and then fading gently, " Dov-ov-ov-ov."But my mother had said to me that the library was a quiet place, and I listened.

Finally, it would be time for my reward. No matter how tired I was, once we left the library, I would run up the incline, dragging my mother by the hand behind me. Both of us would stand breathless at the stoplight, and I would wiggle, until my mother warned me, "We wait until we see the person, Dovie, then we look for a car, and then we can cross!" Once we crossed the street, I could see it - the jets of water leaping joyously into the air, and then falling back down, hitting the pavement in a syncopated rhythm. They danced to a tune I felt only I could hear. My mother would take our bag of books and sit on the giant steps of the Brooklyn Museum and I would run up to the fountain, right next to the iron bars that fenced it in. And I would dance.

I would raise my hands up and the water would shoot up into the blue sky! I would stamp my feet and it would smack into the ground, pelting me with delicate droplets. I was the king of the water, I remember thinking, king being the closest word to commander that I knew.

My mother would wait on the steps until I grew tired and then she would scoop me up and carry me to the subway station. I would wrap my arms around her neck and keep my eyes on the dancing water until our descent into the underground blocked it from my view. I would fall asleep on my mother's lap on the ride back to Crown Heights, body jolted by the 3 train's jerky stops, bolstered by her arms around me and the bulky bag of books next to me, the water still dancing behind my closed eyes.