snow days

I remember waking up and looking out the window to even the weakest of flurries, the snow barely coating the grayish-green winter grass, but we’d run to the TV anyway just to see.

I remember waiting for the cancellation: watching on TV for the name of our school to come across the bottom of the screen. We’d watch the list Attleboro, Acton, Boxboro, Chatham, Dedham, and wait and wait for the M’s. Then the news would cut to commercial, and we’d have to wait some more. So many times we’d leave the room and miss the M’s and have to wait for the whole list to circulate again, dreading the word Massasoit, because that would mean Martha’s Vineyard got skipped once again. We always got rain when everyone else got snow, so we rarely got to stay home.

january 28, 1986

I remember the day Christa McAuliffe died. I was in fourth grade and we had been following her for months as she trained to be an astronaut. I remember my school librarian also applied to the teacher-in-space program, or at least she said so or had talked about doing it or something. I remember checking out a book about being an astronaut from the library and declaring that that was what I wanted to be when I grew up, as most 9-year-olds in America also declared that year.

late 80s/early 90s footwear trends

I remember my first pair of velcro sneakers. I remember they were white leather, and each shoe had two velcro straps. It was extra cool to cross one strap over the other to create an X. I remember my mom was psyched because I am the slowest person on the planet when it comes to getting ready for anything, so thanks to the advent of the velcro sneaker, my shoe-tying would no longer make us late for things.

hiatus ended

Let’s get this kid back in action.

Time to generate ideas.

Time to pull some stuff back through the grey matter.

Site resuscitated.

Good morning to you.

permanent hiatus

I’m spread too thin for two blogs. I’ll pull the “Start with I remember” theme into my primary blog from time to time after all.

halloween costumes, the early years

Age 5

I remember wearing the flower girl dress from a wedding I was in. It was long and white, with a high collar and a burgundy sash. I remember my mother cutting wings out of poster board and attaching them with string. I had a wand and a halo. I remember being too scared to go on stage for the school costume contest, just as scared as I had been the first time I wore that dress up the aisle of the church, crying, and completely forgetting to throw the rose petals from the wicker basket.

the early days of technology

I remember our old console TV. It was about three feet tall and just as wide, and it was made to look like a piece of furniture, with fake drawers at the bottom and carved wooden accents on top. I remember sitting up close so that we wouldn’t have to go too far to change the channel. I remember there were two dials, one with channels, and the other UHF and that other nonsense I still don’t quite understand. I remember laying on our stomachs on the big white bean bag, inches from the screen, watching Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Mighty Mouse, and Tom and Jerry. I remember being told on numerous occasions that sitting so close to the screen would ruin our eyes.

purple hair

I remember the day I dyed my hair purple – it was plum, actually. It is a story that has been told and retold in my family, but never from my side, I don’t think. I remember a girl who was in my Chemistry class a couple years before that who had dyed her hair purple. I remember how pretty it looked, but more so, how she really didn’t care what people thought. Not in the overt “I don’t care what you think” stick your tongue out kind of way, but in an oblivious beat-of-her-own-drummer way that made it seem like she was just above it all.

ford bronco II

I remember when Mom came home with you. It was 1986. She and Vera went off-island for the day to pick you up. We all waited in the driveway – Dad, Chris, Shannon, and Andrea – once we knew your boat was in. We were surprised to see not one but two brand new cars drive into the driveway. Vera had bought a new silver Ford Taurus, and her daughter, my best friend Andrea, was thrilled silly. Little did Andrea and I know at the time how long you and that Ford Taurus – the Silver Bullet – would be in our lives.

field hockey

I remember mornings just like this, waking up before light, 5:30 a.m., throwing on my Umbro shorts and a tee shirt from field hockey camp and piling sweat pants and a windbreaker on top. My sister and I would jump in the front bench seat of my father’s pickup truck (because my mother certainly wasn’t getting up that early), moving over stacks lighting fixture catalogs and Sharpies, and trying to avoid stepping on his tool belt, always on the passenger’s side floor. I remember trying not to talk, because if we could just ride up there in silence, it was almost like we were still sleeping.