From the files: Recollecting

{this article was one I wrote for a newsletter about four years ago.}

my mom, my brother, and I, circa 1980



The fall always stirs my memory. The back-to-school season reminds me of my love for the smell of new books and my passion for school supplies. Those cardboard bins in Target containing mountains of markers and aisles full of folders make me long for a small wooden desk with an attached chair. Then, October comes around, and fall is truly upon us. I love any food or drink with cinnamon in it, and I can’t wait to wander pumpkin patches, looking for one with the perfectly shaped stem. The anticipation of Halloween is even still thrilling for me, remembering the long treks my brother and I would take trick-or-treating; we were a team on an expedition, pillow-cases filling with plunder at every doorstep. When we finally reached home, we’d dump our treasures out between us and begin our careful sorting and bartering ritual, trading off the candies we didn’t like and hoping to score the other’s ones we did. I was usually focused on increasing my count of Baby Ruths, and purging the chalky Bottle Caps.

my mom and my daughter, 2005

Because my two kids are the same gender and spaced the same as my little brother and I are, it is hard not to feel a little deja vu. I share my own memories of childhood with them as much as possible. I want them to know that I can relate to them because I’ve been there. This year, a few days before my daughter started Kindergarten, I drove her to the elementary school I attended. It was a Saturday, and the school was silent and still. We stood looking through the bars of the locked gate and I pointed to my classroom. I told her about my teacher, where I ate lunch, and that I didn’t know a single person. She listened intently, asking a few questions. And I’d like to think that when she started school a few days later, she didn’t feel so alone. At least I think she felt understood.

my daughter, son, and I, 2005

None of us wants to feel alone. I pray that I never get too far into parenthood that I get too far away from my own childhood, to the point that I can no longer relate to my kids. So we take frequent looks at old photos at grandma’s house, and talk about how parents were kids once too. My prayer for you this month is to dig back into your childhood and relate with your child about something. Show them old photos of you at their age, act like a kid and trick-or-treat with them if your family does that, and if so, try to negotiate a Baby Ruth out of the deal.