Taking off for a week or so probably won't be on here...
Ill leave you guys with a lil sumthan...
I might have posted this before but what the hay...
When I was a kid, I lived on and off with my grandparents. My mom was an easy target for addiction. It had her number since she was a kid. Whether a man, the bottle, or any other number of quick fixes she was often lost to my sister and me. It was during these moments that grandma and grandpa would swoop us up and take us in. We were from the their nest, so it made sense. They lived in a house my grandfather built after he retired form the Marine Corps, built it with his two hands and those of my uncles. It was nestled in its own corner of the world in a small sleepy mountain town called Descanso. This place was my sanctuary and my savior, far away from the troubles of my young life.
I was four or five and it had just snowed the night before. the place was covered in a soft wet sheet and our eager little hands were itching to cop a feel. We began the process of getting dressed for a winter adventure as soon as the sun rose. Layer upon layer, we didn't need them. The cold never lasted that long. It would burn and numb our little bodies until we no longer felt any of it. It began in the fingers and than the hands. From there it would spread though the body in a wave of chills. The whole process took less than a few minutes and when it was over you felt cleansed. There was no escaping the cold, it was inevitable as the sun rising and setting each day. In truth there was no need to want escape from it or for that matter want to. It was the cold that made us feel alive. But we dressed anyway to please our grandma.
Dressed and ready for anything, that's how we left. Wobbling out the door and into the world. The air was crisp and refreshing. A faint smell of smoke from the chimney burned my nostrils and filled me with excitement. It was quiet but every now and than a bird would call out signaling to the world that winter was now official. Everything looked new, cloaked in a clean sheet of white. The world was a blank sheet of paper and our little feet left words.
We knew what to do. We hurried over to the shed to fetch the days tools. The lid of a trashcan is all we required. With our lids in hand and weighed down by the layers of our grandmother's love we began the trek up the hill near the backside of the house. Little puffs of heat protruded from our mouths. In and out, in and out our breath was heavy from the work of moving our tiny legs up a hill that hadn't seemed so steep when we had began.
When we reached the top the day could now start. We ran and jumped throwing the lid beneath our tiny bottoms. Hurling ourselves down the hill, the wind biting our faces and our laughter breaking the mornings silence. A feeling of flight had taken hold of our bodies, speeding down the hill; our minds clocking in at a million miles an hour and when the bottom was finally reached we began the cycle again. Top to bottom, this was our day.
It was around my tenth our eleventh time attempting to fly, it started as all the others before it, running jumping throwing my little body into flight, all the while butterflies happily dancing in my stomach. But this time something was different. This time I wished to own the hill. I wanted to put it in my pocket and show my mom. " See" I would say, "look what I did!" She would come and pick me up hold me in her arms of comfort and kiss me. "What a big boy you are" she would say to me smiling. She would never go away again and we would be happy. I would be a hero.
Headfirst was the only way the hill could be purchased. I ran and jumped, landing on my stomach knocking the air and fear out of my little body. At some point on the journey down I fell off course unnoticed. To tell you the truth I didn't even see it coming. BAM...SMACK! My little head was run right into an old oak tree. The hill didn't wish to be owned by a little boy, at least not that day.
Everything after that is blurry. I cried a lot, I know that much. I cried because my head hurt. I cried because my neck hurt. I cried because my back hurt. I cried because my pride hurt. But most of all I cried because of what I learned that day, a little boy can never own a hill.
and on that note
merry christmas!
Ill leave you guys with a lil sumthan...
I might have posted this before but what the hay...
When I was a kid, I lived on and off with my grandparents. My mom was an easy target for addiction. It had her number since she was a kid. Whether a man, the bottle, or any other number of quick fixes she was often lost to my sister and me. It was during these moments that grandma and grandpa would swoop us up and take us in. We were from the their nest, so it made sense. They lived in a house my grandfather built after he retired form the Marine Corps, built it with his two hands and those of my uncles. It was nestled in its own corner of the world in a small sleepy mountain town called Descanso. This place was my sanctuary and my savior, far away from the troubles of my young life.
I was four or five and it had just snowed the night before. the place was covered in a soft wet sheet and our eager little hands were itching to cop a feel. We began the process of getting dressed for a winter adventure as soon as the sun rose. Layer upon layer, we didn't need them. The cold never lasted that long. It would burn and numb our little bodies until we no longer felt any of it. It began in the fingers and than the hands. From there it would spread though the body in a wave of chills. The whole process took less than a few minutes and when it was over you felt cleansed. There was no escaping the cold, it was inevitable as the sun rising and setting each day. In truth there was no need to want escape from it or for that matter want to. It was the cold that made us feel alive. But we dressed anyway to please our grandma.
Dressed and ready for anything, that's how we left. Wobbling out the door and into the world. The air was crisp and refreshing. A faint smell of smoke from the chimney burned my nostrils and filled me with excitement. It was quiet but every now and than a bird would call out signaling to the world that winter was now official. Everything looked new, cloaked in a clean sheet of white. The world was a blank sheet of paper and our little feet left words.
We knew what to do. We hurried over to the shed to fetch the days tools. The lid of a trashcan is all we required. With our lids in hand and weighed down by the layers of our grandmother's love we began the trek up the hill near the backside of the house. Little puffs of heat protruded from our mouths. In and out, in and out our breath was heavy from the work of moving our tiny legs up a hill that hadn't seemed so steep when we had began.
When we reached the top the day could now start. We ran and jumped throwing the lid beneath our tiny bottoms. Hurling ourselves down the hill, the wind biting our faces and our laughter breaking the mornings silence. A feeling of flight had taken hold of our bodies, speeding down the hill; our minds clocking in at a million miles an hour and when the bottom was finally reached we began the cycle again. Top to bottom, this was our day.
It was around my tenth our eleventh time attempting to fly, it started as all the others before it, running jumping throwing my little body into flight, all the while butterflies happily dancing in my stomach. But this time something was different. This time I wished to own the hill. I wanted to put it in my pocket and show my mom. " See" I would say, "look what I did!" She would come and pick me up hold me in her arms of comfort and kiss me. "What a big boy you are" she would say to me smiling. She would never go away again and we would be happy. I would be a hero.
Headfirst was the only way the hill could be purchased. I ran and jumped, landing on my stomach knocking the air and fear out of my little body. At some point on the journey down I fell off course unnoticed. To tell you the truth I didn't even see it coming. BAM...SMACK! My little head was run right into an old oak tree. The hill didn't wish to be owned by a little boy, at least not that day.
Everything after that is blurry. I cried a lot, I know that much. I cried because my head hurt. I cried because my neck hurt. I cried because my back hurt. I cried because my pride hurt. But most of all I cried because of what I learned that day, a little boy can never own a hill.
and on that note
merry christmas!
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
you so cute, you make me
a week is a long time
[Edited on Dec 23, 2004 11:48PM]