**I'll be out of town on business for the rest of the week, so I'll see you this coming weekend...
Mulberry Paragraphics
One of the wonders of advancing age is the ability to recall specific events fifty years past, as they happened, down to the most infinitesimal details of surroundings, while not being able to remember whether or not you shut the garage door five minutes ago. From time to time, my olfactory senses reward me with a certain combination of indescribable odors that immediately carry me to a particular long-since-considered scene from my boyhood and set me gracefully in the presence of loved ones who’ve passed from this earth. The sweet aroma wafting off a co-worker’s apple cobbler fresh from the microwave oven becomes a magic portal to a cookie and a kiss on the forehead from Mother along with the admonishment, of course, not to be late for supper. I feel her fingers rub the back of my head as she squeezes me lovingly to her bodice, causing me to squirm and resist as though I were being dipped in hot lye. Oh, Mom, stop, my friends are watching! I’m ten, you know—not seven! But I never left without a smile, even if she didn’t get to see it as I stuffed my face with that cookie and ran out the back door, slamming the screen behind me and waiting for the inevitable scream forcing me back to open and shut the door correctly. I didn’t mind… it gave me the opportunity to finish my cookie before reaching my pals. When I reached the alley, licking the chocolate off my fingers, they’d be there to remind me what a butthook I was for not sharing. Then, when I reached into my shirt pocket and retrieved a chocolate-chip masterpiece for each of them, God came down from heaven and all was right with the world. For a second time, fifty years later, three little boys would once again share neighborhood small talk while lounging in the shade of Mrs. Nuttall’s mulberry bush, all because I walked into the break room to rinse out my coffee cup.
One of the wonders of advancing age is the ability to recall specific events fifty years past, as they happened, down to the most infinitesimal details of surroundings, while not being able to remember whether or not you shut the garage door five minutes ago. From time to time, my olfactory senses reward me with a certain combination of indescribable odors that immediately carry me to a particular long-since-considered scene from my boyhood and set me gracefully in the presence of loved ones who’ve passed from this earth. The sweet aroma wafting off a co-worker’s apple cobbler fresh from the microwave oven becomes a magic portal to a cookie and a kiss on the forehead from Mother along with the admonishment, of course, not to be late for supper. I feel her fingers rub the back of my head as she squeezes me lovingly to her bodice, causing me to squirm and resist as though I were being dipped in hot lye. Oh, Mom, stop, my friends are watching! I’m ten, you know—not seven! But I never left without a smile, even if she didn’t get to see it as I stuffed my face with that cookie and ran out the back door, slamming the screen behind me and waiting for the inevitable scream forcing me back to open and shut the door correctly. I didn’t mind… it gave me the opportunity to finish my cookie before reaching my pals. When I reached the alley, licking the chocolate off my fingers, they’d be there to remind me what a butthook I was for not sharing. Then, when I reached into my shirt pocket and retrieved a chocolate-chip masterpiece for each of them, God came down from heaven and all was right with the world. For a second time, fifty years later, three little boys would once again share neighborhood small talk while lounging in the shade of Mrs. Nuttall’s mulberry bush, all because I walked into the break room to rinse out my coffee cup.
4 comments:
Oh! This is nice! Thank Gawd we can do that...take little trips back and rejuvenate that simple innocence, making one all warm and whole inside...if only for a minute...
A better place to live
somethings.
A better place to be.
Thank you for this one,
off to live in the past
and hope this old day
does not last.
be safe on your trip.
kay lee
Simple pleasures from a memory always out-trump the worry of closing that garage door. thanks
Thank ya, thank ya... pleases me that you like it.
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