miercoles

It's Wednesday, right? That means it's productive day. I came back from lunch with every intention of being productive. I was going to do my web visit for EDP, read the people's short stories I'm supposed to read for tomorrow, and study for the Spanish oral exam I have tomorrow at 1:30. I sat down, seriously, to do it all, but what did I do? I laid down and took a three hour nap. So my day's been productive, wouldn't you say?

Okay. Here seems just as good of a place as any to write about this kinda flashback I've been having lately. It's one of those very vivid memories that you don't realize you have until you remember them until nearly fifteen years later. I'm guessing it's either been fifteen years or a couple less:

I'm a small kid like I said, probably more like six or eight years old. I'm sitting in the back of my dad's little, rusted-out, yellow Toyota pickup truck. It's parked under the hickory nut tree. This is at the "farm," as we call it. I guess it's a farm. It's surrounded by our farmland. That's where I lived until fourth grade. So I'm sitting in the back yard in the back of Dad's truck under this tree, and I'm listening to some old, old, old Judy Garland tape (it was a white tape--I remember) on my headphones. Of course, the only song on it that I knew was "Over the Rainbow," so I just keep rewinding the tape and listening to that song over and over.

It's a strange little memory. But just the other day, I remembered it so clearly. I was basically an only child because my sister got married when I was seven. I never had playmates at home, so I always entertained myself in strange ways. I was always partial to trees and vehicles. Weird, I know. I mean, I never climbed the trees or anything, but I would always find one in particular to sit and play under. The one at home was the hickory nut tree. The one at Nana's house, I don't even know what kind of tree it is. But we, me and her grandsons, called it "heaven." It's funny to me that I could go up to either one of those boys and mention "heaven" to them, and they would know exactly what tree I was talking about. And about the cars. I don't know. During temperate weather, I would go and sit in my mom's car or in the back of my dad's truck pretending. I was a big make-believer. I guess I had to be.

But I just want to say that it is somewhat of an eerie feeling to suddenly have childhood memories, ones that you didn't know were there, but as soon as you remember, you know without a doubt that it happened. I do that a lot. I guess what makes it weird is that I never really know what I might remember.