Monday, June 8, 2020

The Ninth: Have You Ever . . .

Part of a series inspired by Ross Gay
that starts here: 

Last night, as I lay waiting for sleep to lift me up into dreamland, an old delightful memory filled my brain. How could I forget Uncle P and Aunt B's farm?

I can see the small kitchen and the table where I'd join my cousins for lunch (first time seeing someone gnaw on a raw potato)-- if I was lucky enough to visit. And that barn! That's what I remember the most: the hay dust floating in sunlit air, Dutch the old horse and all of those good barn smells.

There was a summer day (maybe more than once, who knows for sure), when the three of us, G, T & thee, climbed up the worn, built-in vertical ladder to the hayloft. And then my two cousins suggested something unthought of . . . to me. "Let's jump down into the haypile!"

Was that the first time I ever "girded my loins" for a boost of courage? Perhaps, though I'm sure jumping into a river ranks in that category when you're younger than 9. Maybe that was the first time I needed to use the, "1, 2, 3, jump", method of self encouragement, because I can remember standing at the edge, looking at the haypile below and needing all my loins could offer.

The jump? The landing? Yes! It was all I hoped it would be! And then we immediately scrambled up that ladder for more.

No comments: