Grateful

I don't remember much about my childhood, and those things I do remember are either funny, or somewhat trivial...at least in my opinion. I grew up in Southern California, in the high desert and my memories of that place are as real as if they happened yesterday. Here are a few of them:

I remember when my parents would turn on the swamp cooler in our house and my brothers and I would close all the doors in the hallway and lie under the cold air with blankets while we talked about everything for hours.

I remember another time when my brothers and I, apparently for lack of something to do, would sit in their room and make ourselves laugh until it reached a point where we were all laughing so hard we were crying, but we had nothing specific to laugh about.

I remember when my sister and I thought it was "fun" to walk two miles in the desert to the nearest 7-11 on a hot Saturday in July just because we wanted to, and how we would always end up with goatheads and other types of stickers in our legs and feet.

I remember when one person in our family would get the flu and start to throw up how my sister and I would refuse to eat anything for three days until we were sure that either the virus had passed, or we weren't going to get it, and I remember how on those rare times that we did throw up, we would convince ourselves that it was a good way to lose weight.

I remember long nights of standing out in the yard by the front gate watching cars drive by, and lying on the trampoline underneath a warm blanket counting the stars and thinking about how small I was in comparrison to everything else.

I remember my sister asking me how my day went and generally trying to get me to talk with her as we got ready for bed only for me to say one or two words in reply, but the second the light was off and we were in bed I wouldn't stop talking and she would fall asleep to my ramblings.

I remember pepsip wasps, solgeepudgees, water beetles, and pack rats...at least that's what we called them.

I remember how my brothers and I would dig out holes in the dirt in our backyard and pretend like we lived there (we had stairs and everything!).

I remember my mom waking us up in the middle of the night to show us it was snowing and how excited she was about it.

I remember watching Fraggle Rock on HBO.

I remember casseroles, jello, and having as many people over for the holidays as we could, and I remember how "the kitchen is closed" had real meaning in our house.

I know there are many more memories of my childhood that I am bound to recall as the years go by, but I had a good time reminiscing about these ones. I am grateful for the good memories I have of my family. It's funny, this is not how I anticipated this post going, but it made me laugh to think of all these experiences.