Early Memories & the Moon

My first image in this life is sitting on the bumper of my father’s car and feeling the heat smart on the back of my legs. I look up at my father at his charming smile, the loving feeling of his arm around me, and his handsome face staring forward at the camera. Despite the heat from the car burning my legs, something tells me to endure the pain and let the picture be taken.

The next memory is looking down at mounds of hot, dry dirt. Adults are sitting around in lawn chairs, laughing and drinking. The smell of the earth brings on feelings of home – I’m no-longer afraid – throwing handfuls above my head, making mud, absolutely recognizing that this will be as good as it gets. Dirt is real; it has smell, texture and is the core of everything – this is the first time feeling that I belonged in this world and that it was okay to be here… living.

Scanning memory again, a blue carpet and tiny bits of white particles manifest across my line of vision. The carpet burns my knees. I hear my name being called out, and seeing a glass brought down to my level, I crawl towards it and take a sip. The drink tasted strange but delicious as I peer up into the glass at the white bubbles, smelling the liquids bitterness as it travels up my nose, a wonderful sensation.

No matter how hard I try to remember the little things between the darkness, it is much later, on an airplane, looking out the window at the white clouds and below, the perfect square lines and shades the colour green. There was no fear whatsoever, but a true excitement that we were actually among the blue and white, flying in the sky.

Memory turns to flashes now, except for the nightmares.

Attempting to re-create these terrible visions in sleep, as a small child is difficult. Are they true recollections of dreams or something else?

We forget how lonely a small child’s existence can be: left in the cot for most of the morning, hungry and waiting. My trick was to jump up and down like a professional trampolinest; this action would most certainly bring mother to make my breakfast. The window was right next to my bed, thus I could jump higher and higher, up and down, seeing the apartment building across the alleyway. I remember it being a queer sensation, a perception of “now you see it, now you don’t.” At night, above the building hung a beautiful, glowing light. As I watched it turn whiter and move closer to me, this vision, this incredible orb, had to be mine for the taking. Why would this wonderful light disappear in the morning? Later, I was caught at my bouncing antics and my little bed moved to the other side of the room, to ensure my small body did not end up on the concrete, three stories below.

It was only much later that it dawned on me that the moon could never be mine.