austrianpenrage
01-15-2008, 11:28 PM
Retrospect
It is funny, how a brain can forget. Those times of pure happiness, when we were little, we push them away. And it is after years, that something causes us to recall happy images from our childhood. Yesterday it happened to me. After I had put my book away and lay in the dark, waiting for the sleep to come, those images became suddenly very vivid.
From the little house I remember to the homestead of our relatives it was a walk of only about two minutes. And yet it was superior, that whitewashed house with the wooden upper storey. It stood like a ship on an exposed rock, and when it rained, it truly felt like being on a ship. It’s interesting; I remember the place best in the rain.
The rain would pour down and I would sit comfortably on a cushioned bench on the right end of the balcony; a glass pane protected me to the right, and to the front – well, I simply didn’t go too close. I watched the mist mix with the lake, and when the rain fell denser and denser, the world around me was finally just grey and wet and fascinating. But I was safe, on board the house, and very cozy.
When the weather was good, it was beautiful, too. We would watch sailboats on the lake, close to the opposite shore, and behind that, in town, we saw trains squeezing in-between houses and through narrow space. As the trains pursued their journey along the lake, we could follow them with our eyes until, after four or five minutes, they went out of sight, into a valley.
On sunny days we searched the basement of the homestead for the helms of my mother’s old rowboat. The basement had little shafts for light and air in front of its windows and we always tried to rescue frogs, when they dropped in there. Some of them were dead when we found them.
We would drag the old boat into the lake and go across patches of algae, toward a place where children played in the shallow water, and if they wanted, we’d take them for a ride. Sometimes we couldn’t help it and disappeared, keel first, into the reed. Or we would simply tie the boat and fight a mud battle. The ground of the lake was very muddy there.
From time to time we undertook the venture and went all the way across the lake. Who can do it in half an hour? Over there we would pass packs of swans and, when we approached the runway, shout “Ahoi” to the tourists, and when they looked curiously, we were proud and felt like real sailors.
We could also walk to the other side of the lake; there was a path that led through the reed. There were four bridges on the way, and the water underneath them was deep and flew very fast.
Another time, when I stayed in the house alone, a cousin would play a trick on me and lock the door from outside. Then I would open a window on the upper floor (for the lower level contained farm machines and only a few little windows), jump out and break nothing. And I would find a snakeskin in a hole.
It’s one of several places of my childhood that I have in my mind, as clear, distinct and bright as if it had been yesterday. I remember every dot of the image I saw when I looked out from the balcony, every single one of the flowers in my aunts flower boxes, every hassock on the slope. I think I was a very happy kid.
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I'm looking forward to any kind of feedback, style correction and suggestion you can give me. Thank you! :)
It is funny, how a brain can forget. Those times of pure happiness, when we were little, we push them away. And it is after years, that something causes us to recall happy images from our childhood. Yesterday it happened to me. After I had put my book away and lay in the dark, waiting for the sleep to come, those images became suddenly very vivid.
From the little house I remember to the homestead of our relatives it was a walk of only about two minutes. And yet it was superior, that whitewashed house with the wooden upper storey. It stood like a ship on an exposed rock, and when it rained, it truly felt like being on a ship. It’s interesting; I remember the place best in the rain.
The rain would pour down and I would sit comfortably on a cushioned bench on the right end of the balcony; a glass pane protected me to the right, and to the front – well, I simply didn’t go too close. I watched the mist mix with the lake, and when the rain fell denser and denser, the world around me was finally just grey and wet and fascinating. But I was safe, on board the house, and very cozy.
When the weather was good, it was beautiful, too. We would watch sailboats on the lake, close to the opposite shore, and behind that, in town, we saw trains squeezing in-between houses and through narrow space. As the trains pursued their journey along the lake, we could follow them with our eyes until, after four or five minutes, they went out of sight, into a valley.
On sunny days we searched the basement of the homestead for the helms of my mother’s old rowboat. The basement had little shafts for light and air in front of its windows and we always tried to rescue frogs, when they dropped in there. Some of them were dead when we found them.
We would drag the old boat into the lake and go across patches of algae, toward a place where children played in the shallow water, and if they wanted, we’d take them for a ride. Sometimes we couldn’t help it and disappeared, keel first, into the reed. Or we would simply tie the boat and fight a mud battle. The ground of the lake was very muddy there.
From time to time we undertook the venture and went all the way across the lake. Who can do it in half an hour? Over there we would pass packs of swans and, when we approached the runway, shout “Ahoi” to the tourists, and when they looked curiously, we were proud and felt like real sailors.
We could also walk to the other side of the lake; there was a path that led through the reed. There were four bridges on the way, and the water underneath them was deep and flew very fast.
Another time, when I stayed in the house alone, a cousin would play a trick on me and lock the door from outside. Then I would open a window on the upper floor (for the lower level contained farm machines and only a few little windows), jump out and break nothing. And I would find a snakeskin in a hole.
It’s one of several places of my childhood that I have in my mind, as clear, distinct and bright as if it had been yesterday. I remember every dot of the image I saw when I looked out from the balcony, every single one of the flowers in my aunts flower boxes, every hassock on the slope. I think I was a very happy kid.
---
I'm looking forward to any kind of feedback, style correction and suggestion you can give me. Thank you! :)