Salvador Dali said that he could vividly remember being born. My first memory is of a dream, descending a staircase into darkness as a string of transparent adults warned me not to continue. Red Hair Girl was abused and has huge gaps in her childhood, I think her memory starts in Junior High. Lee's first memory is thinking he was one of the cats because he crawled on the ground like them. How about you?
I could talk before I could walk. I started speaking in sentences at ten months old, it was early enough that many people were shocked. They would have been more shocked if I could curse then, but you can't have everything.
At age four mother talked about sending me to some sort of special school, but they must have decided against it because I ended up attending a small public school in town. At age five I did well on some tests and started being sent to classes for gifted children. My favorite part of these courses were these sort of exercises they did where they would have us close our eyes and imagine a scene, then draw it or write about what happens there.
At age five I learned to make my own food. My parents were distant, non-nurturing, self-centered, and away a lot. Childhood for me is the memory of being alone, or alone and in charge of my siblings. To this day my comfort food is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because that is the first thing I learned to make for myself, a guarantee we would not go hungry during quiet hours.
At age five I started piano lessons, site reading pieces from yellowing piano books in a windowless room while the fat instructor talked about how my sense of melody was good but my rhythm sucked. What do you expect from a white kid? Metronomes work wonders. This was my start in music.
At age five I believed that I was an alien sent to observe the human race and report back. I told my 5-year-old best friend this in confidence and he replied "That's stupid, let's play tag." I have never completely let this belief go, there is probably a psychological explanation for it, something about a sense of belonging, oedipal sex, and a canary not loving you enough.
Every family is twisted and most childhoods are hard, but we get past them and eventually become like our parents. My life is about the struggle to be more like the father I have never met than the mother who does not feel. This is the beginning of my story. This is where I come from. How about you? |
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