Green almonds and black scorpions
Most of my childhood memories are about our old neighborhood; an unassuming and rather unaesthetic cluster of apartment buildings, lined lengthways, in a perfect straight line they looked almost identical. Small apartments stuck one on top of the other with narrow stairs and stone handrails perfect for sliding. A narrow asphalt road connected all of them in the front and a dirt path with hovering dusty pines was the border in the back, between the buildings and the open fields.
It felt like a a small world all to itself, like a safe isolated bubble, but that of course is my own take from a child point of view. There were no cars at all inside the neighborhood, maybe because of the narrow road and the proximity of the buildings, but more likely because almost no one had private cars then, or TVs, or phones for that matter. So we spent most of our free time outside and completely without adult supervision, we were free to come and go as we pleased.
The world around the neighborhood was huge and exciting, full of delicious surprises it kept us busy. There was a sea of wild flowers in the winter; deep pink Cyclamens, blood red Anemones, shy pink Saffrons and wild Narcisus. There were pine cones to shake for pine nuts all the rest of the year, necklaces to be made from pine needles, big purple Passiflora flowers to reshape and create little stick people, fossils to bring home from our journeys on the many trails we were exploring. Later my younger brother upped the game, as he always did, when he discovered an untapped supply of black, deadly scorpions, under those same rocks and triumphantly brought them home in glass jars to every body’s dismay, but that’s his story not mine. I was content with running up and down the staircases and in order to visit my friends who lived just one entrance away all I had to do was walk across the flat open roof.
Our apartment was on the fourth floor, just below the roof that housed the water tanks, one for each apartment, they hosted endless wonders. I loved peeking into them marveling at the colors of the rust and the different forms of life growing in them. From the roof I could see big part of the town and on the end of Memorial Day I used to run up to watch the blue projected lights that were part of the closing ceremony in the nearby military cemetery. Two long blue lines that moved slowly from side to side a minute before the fireworks, marking the beginning of the Independence Day celebration, exploded and lighted the sky up.
In front of our building I remember a raw of almond trees, cut later to make room for another building. In the spring after their spectacular white bloom we spent hours climbing on them picking green almonds and eating till we got sick. The outside shell was soft and slightly bitter and the inside not yet solidified was pure clear liquid that tasted heavenly. One year my father brought home a small tree and we planted it in the back of the building. I couldn’t contain the joy of having my own private almond tree.
With the years the small circle of buildings that contained our world, my world, grew and opened to include new adventures further away. There were frequent visits to the nearby military cemetery where we collected tadpoles from small pools, voyages to find mulberry trees to supply leaves for my silk warms and weekend’s walks across the fields to visit friends in other neighborhoods.
When I turned twelve my parents decided it was time for me to learn how to swim and for the first time I was allowed to take the bus, from the small bus station down the road, and ride it all by myself to the other side of town. I felt courageous and daring as any world traveler on his way to discover new worlds. I also discovered how small my neighborhood really was and how venturing out into the world can be at the same time an enriching experience as well as a decreasing one. Shortly after that we moved to another part of the town, and I became too busy with school and other activities, too old to just roam the fields aimlessly looking for arbitrary surprises and unplanned adventures.
Your writing is almost never the kind of material I can read and immediately comment on. I need time to let it sit, digest it, and then see if I can figure out what I think.
ReplyDeleteThat is the case today, so expect comments certainly by day's end Thursday.
Some pieces get so saturated with memory that their strength, those memories, become a weakness. There's a struggle between the good material and the memories; the person says it's all equally valuable, but the writer has to be more skeptical and to see what's useful and what's not only remembered but also memorable.
ReplyDeleteSomething like your first graf, I'd dispense with as descriptive yet not bearing an individual stamp--whereas graf 3 has many good things in it that only you could have written. The later description of the taste of the almonds also stands out. In fact, I think the piece could have ended with the planting of your almond tree, which can certainly carry a lot of emotional and symbolic weight.