I don’t have any bad memories before the age of six. There were no worries about money, acceptance, belonging, or the stress of anything in particular. I had not yet experienced loss, and wasn’t aware if anyone was sick from anything other than an occasional cold or the flu.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and that in itself made the world a bit simpler I suppose.
On summer days, there were many occasions of laying on the well-groomed lawn at our house in the suburbs outside of Detroit. Back in the days of wondrous clouds. They were more than just clouds, they were whatever our imagination could conjure up. Whether laying on the grass alone, with a sibling, or with a friend nearby, I would see things with a glimpse of what was possible.
Every shape and color added to the intrigue and to the thoughtful stories we would create. The mystic look of the sky before a storm was ready to roll in, almost glowing with the stillness that presented itself before we scurried into the basement during a tornado warning. Or, the gentle puffy clouds that evolved into new shapes. Would our story stay the same, or would it change with wind? We were open to whatever came next, laying on the grass.
As an adult, there is a familiar nostalgia hidden in the clouds. Life continues to change, over and over, and yet I can still seek solace looking up. Moments of awareness, missing from decades of my life, appear again, if and when I allow the time to notice. Sometimes I am brought back in time, remembering the pieces I choose to recall, and leaving behind pieces I choose to forget. And, a familiar tug when I hear Joni Mitchell’s song “Both Sides, Now”:
“I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all”
We didn’t have a lawn service, but we did have a dad who was meticulous about the front lawn. Each week he mowed with care, being sure to edge along the sidewalk and driveway, before turning on the in-ground sprinklers. When the sprinklers went on, I would run across the lawn giggling in pure joy as the water tickled my skin. No one seemed to mind, least of all me, if my clothes and hair got wet. Sometimes I wore a swimsuit, but it didn’t matter either way. There was no one to impress. With no air conditioning in our 1928 English Tudor home, and no swimming pool in the backyard, running through the sprinklers was a fun way to keep cool on a hot summer’s day. These were days of hair that air dried, of fresh skin that sought out nothing more than a bar of soap, or a hose in the backyard.
The backyard grass, if we could call it that, was for playing sports, running around, and for making ice rinks in the winter. It was rough and tumble, just like my four brothers, with brown patches from playing baseball or throwing a football around. Closer to the house nearest to one of the outside porches, was a small garden area with low-maintenance perennials like rhubarb, and mint leaves. Looking back, I can see why we didn’t have much more growing in the backyard. With six children, my mom did not have the time to tend a garden, as she so enjoyed later in life.
I remember picking mint leaves off a plant, taking a deep breath of their fresh scent, and gently placing them on my tongue. Eventually chewing them up like a piece of gum. I hadn’t had gum at the time, but looking back I can see how it was just like that for me then. Near the garage was a sandbox for me, the baby of the family, and my brother 19 months older. Our cats liked the sandbox too, and I laugh in hindsight when I think of my parents shooing them away.
On occasion, there was the hint of the gentle beauty and grace of my sister outside too, the oldest in the family, ten years older than me. I looked up to her with wonder, just like the clouds. On occasion she would lay out in the backyard sun with baby oil and an aluminum foil covered photo album, to gather up as much color as she could before heading out with friends or on a date.
If I knew she’d be gone long enough, sometimes I would put on her silkier nightgowns and pretend I was a princess. Twirling around the room we shared, looking in the mirror as she and her friends did, pretending I too was headed out for something special. It was nothing like wearing my boring cotton pajamas. For a few minutes I transformed like the clouds did too.
Life has a funny way of changing us as the decades go by. Pieces come and go, and some remain. Some we stuff away, and deny their existence, until we grow up one day to realize they are part of who we are and we hold them a bit closer.
Just like the clouds, our transformation is what we let it be, until we allow it to be what it is. And when we do, we can look up again with the same wonder and imagine what is possible.