childhood

Celery

/ sweetsaraline

My younger sister runs up to the refrigerator when she is around two or three years old.

She feels overheated. Her scalp and neck are damp and warm and her feet are sweaty and dirty from running around outside in a pair of sneakers with no socks. She opens the fridge looking for a source of relief.

She sees a bowl of water with fresh sticks of celery floating in it. The celery looks cool and refreshing. Carefully, she uses two hands to set the bowl down on the floor.

Cool air from the open fridge caresses the crown of her head as she sits in front of the bowl. She plunges a foot into the cold, refrigerated water. A satisfying and cooling wave moves from her foot to the rest of her body. She sticks the other foot in and scoops water over both of her feet, watching the dirt drip off of her skin.

When her feet are clean and her body temperature more comfortable, she puts the bowl of celery back in the fridge and closes the door.

Construction site

/ sweetsaraline

In third grade, I walk to school every day with a girl who is a year older than me. We walk on a dirt road with houses on one side and a field on the other.

The daily walk starts quietly, with our two voices blending with the ancient voices of the little birds in the field. Drops of dew cling to blades of grass like paper bag lunches. Other kids join us on the way until an entire group of us arrives in the schoolyard.

It is like this at first, anyway, before the new subdivision begins to be built. Instead of walking next to a field, we walk through a construction site. Our voices and the birds’ voices cannot compete with the loud machines.

One morning, a section of our dirt road has disappeared and been replaced by a large hole. The excavator is still working on it, it’s long, graceful arm reaching into the hole and scooping dirt out with sharp claws as it whirs loudly.

I want to take a wide detour around the hole. My friend wants to walk to the edge of hole so the guy in the excavator can see us, and then walk carefully around the edge.

We start walking slowly towards the excavator, but I panic and run around the scary obstacle. My friend runs after me.

“Why did you do that?” she asks once we’re on the other side.

As an adult, I recount these events to my parents, but neither of them remembers me having to walk through a construction site.

“I believe you, I just don’t remember that,” my dad tells me.

Did they just not know about the construction? Is that why they still let me walk to school?

Bowie

/ sweetsaraline / 2 Comments

The first band I saw in concert was the Moody Blues when I was six or seven. We saw them at Canada’s Wonderland in Toronto. Our day was spent going on the rides and walking back to the parking lot to eat sandwiches and salads from our cooler.

When the sun was getting ready to finally give us some space, my parents spread a blanket out on the grass where we could see the stage. We relaxed on the blanket and enjoyed the music.

“I want to see a show this summer,” my husband tells me many years later. I do a quick search in our vicinity, and I find one: a Sam Roberts concert in Mont-Tremblant.

“Do I know that band?” Phil asks. I list off some songs I think he knows. We listen to some on YouTube. Phil agrees that it could be a good choice.

“It’s nice up there,” I say. “We could find somewhere to stay and have a mini-vacation.”

“Can I come?” my son asks. It seems like a good setting for his first concert, so I say yes.

A couple days later, my son and I are having a video chat with my sister.

“Tell her what we’re doing this summer,” I say.

My son’s eyes light up. “We’re going to a David Bowie concert!” he says.

Stealth

/ sweetsaraline

Even though I’m a kid and even though it’s summer time, I am riding my bike to school. My errand today is to pick up my high school report card, and it turns out to be a lovely day for a bike ride.

The country highway is straight and cuts through the flat landscape. Some of the ditches along the road are soft with fresh cut grass, some are full of weeds, and some are spongey and hidden by tall, elegant reeds. Bushy trees line fields, and as I get closer to my school, the corn crops dwindle and make way for the tobacco crops.

I arrive at my destination. As I turn into the school parking lot, my dog, Creedence, emerges from the shadows like a Viking invader. She is panting happily, and very proud of how silently she ran through the ditches and behind the trees as she followed me to school.

Missing: part three

/ sweetsaraline

This Sunday school is weird and I’m not even supposed to be here. I suppose it’s not really their fault that their van driver accidentally kidnapped me this morning. I don’t know very much about this organization, but when I grow up I’ll learn that they use discrimination to choose which individuals they will help and which ones they won’t. Their name sort of rhymes with “Dalmatian Barmy.”

For now, I can’t put my finger on why I think this Sunday school is weird. I’m so anxious about being in the wrong place, about Carol being sad that I didn’t go to Sunday school with her, and about how I’m going to get home that years later all I can remember are the buttons that they handed out. The buttons are covered with pictures of a smiling cartoon dog with a backwards baseball cap and shiny sunglasses. The dog is telling us to “SAY NO TO DRUGS.”

Meanwhile, Carol and Amelia’s parents are discussing who will pick up which daughter from their respective Sunday schools. My mom says, “Don’t they go to the same Sunday school?”

The pieces start falling into place. My dad and Carol and Amelia’s dad drive to the Dalmatian Barmy to pick Amelia and I up and I never have to go to Sunday school again. THE END.

Missing: part two

/ sweetsaraline

My parents are friends with a couple who have two daughters. Amelia* is a year older than me and Carol is a year younger than me.

I am walking to their house to go to Sunday school with Carol. It’s a sunny day and I’m happy that I get to go see my friends. I am almost at their house when I run into Amelia, who is standing on the sidewalk with some other kids.

“Oh, hi,” she says, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to your house,” I tell her.

“Oh. I’m going to Sunday school.”

“I’m going to Sunday school. That’s why I’m going to your house.”

“I guess you should just come with me then,” she says.

“Okay.”

A large, white van driven by a man that I’ve never seen before pulls up and we all climb in. Amelia explains to the man that she’s bringing me to Sunday school with her. He turns to look at the back of the van to smile at me. He has short, thin, dark grey hair and a gold tooth. He is wearing an old leather jacket. He turns back around and the van pulls away from the curb.

As the van rattles through town, I lean over and say, “Hey Amelia, where’s Carol?”

“Oh, she goes to a different Sunday school,” Amelia says.

*Not their real names

Missing: part one

/ sweetsaraline

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, kids are still enjoying a certain level of freedom. We can walk to the store by ourselves. We can knock on the door of a stranger who everyone calls “the candy man” to get free treats. We can toboggan down a hill that has a fence on the bottom of it, even though we’ve been told not to. Nobody will even know until one of us comes home with a black eye.

If there’s an article in the newspaper about an attempted kidnapping a block away, our mothers and fathers won’t lock us inside. They’ll just say, “If you see a tan van with a maroon stripe, make sure you stay away from it.”

When friends of my parents call to ask if I can go to Sunday school with their younger daughter, my mother asks if they can give me a ride. The adults come to an agreement, and that Sunday, I walk over to their house. It’s only a block away. My mother watches me leave.

Half an hour later, the telephone rings. My mother answers. It is the mother of the friend who I am supposed to be going to Sunday school with. She asks my mother if I’m on my way and informs her that I never showed up at their house.

Panicking, my parents retrace my route, looking for me. I’m not there. They run back home and I’m still not there.

When the police arrive, my parents give them a picture of me. In the picture, I’m wearing a mint green dress with a wide lace collar that has a pink ribbon threaded through it. My hair softly branches away from my face like the needles of an undecorated Christmas tree. My two front teeth are shorter than all of my other teeth, but they have ambitions of becoming bigger than them all.

The police go door to door with my picture asking if anyone has seen me. My friends in the neighborhood stare at the cops and the picture with wide-eyed astonishment. I’m famous now. They know a famous person!

One by one, every single neighbour shakes their head. None of them have seen me.

Haunted

/ sweetsaraline

My mother is sad that I don’t have more memories of her grandfather.

“Don’t you remember that he had a crow?” she asks. “And it would untie your shoelaces?”

I shake my head. I wish I remembered that. Was I upset that the crow kept untying my shoelaces, or did I think it was funny? I guess the crow that that I was funny if it wanted to play with me. I picture the glossy, black feathers and the big beak as shiny as a new record. It cocks its head side to side, watching me, and as soon as I let my guard down, it dives to my feet and pulls the string out of the loop again before making a dramatic escape.

I can picture my great-grandfather’s crow, but I don’t remember it.

I do, however, remember his haunted piano. He’s sitting on the bench smiling while the keys move up and down on their own. His hands rests on his knees while the piano plays its own jaunty tune without his assistance. He watches to see my reaction, and when I stare at the piano in wonder, he slaps his knee and laughs.

Garden Star of the week: Raspberries

/ sweetsaraline

When I was a very small child, we had neighbours across the street who had a big garden with large paths. In the summer, they would give me a basket and let me pick as many raspberries as I wanted.

The raspberries in my garden are starting to ripen, which means I get a tasty, sweet, and tart treat every time I go outside. It’s like eating candy, but with fewer cavities. Nothing tastes better than a fresh raspberry. I hope to one day have enough of them to make jam. Congrats, raspberries, you are the Garden Star 🌟 of the week!