I swear we will get to songs other people know soon. But first, one or two more that exist mostly in my childhood's memory.
The second floor of our house was designed for me and my sister. A builder came and put the second floor on our little house - 3 rooms connected by a hallway with a little built in bookcase. The tan carpet marked our shared space - the bookshelf, the crawlspace, and the entrance to our shared bathroom. The carpet acted like demarcation lines on a map, the tan turning pink at my sister's door, and to blue at mine.
I am in my twin sized bed, fresh from the shower, and just tucked in by my mom. I can feel the texture of the flannel sheets on my bare feet, in my mind it's a Sunday so the sheets have been washed. They are crisp and still smell like the cool outside air after an afternoon on the clothesline. I reach for all of my stuffed animals to ensure they are safe By that time my bed was pretty full - I had blankey, traveling blankey, Tommy (a washcloth my sister turned into a turtle for me one day when I was sick), a koala in a Yankee cap named Freddie, a Burger King reindeer named Randy, a black wolverine (whose names I can't remember - which devastates me) and I think one or two more animals (who I can't remember either - which devastates me even more).
My mom turns off the light, leaving just the hallway light on long enough to guide her descent down the stairs. Before she starts down I ask her to put on the music again. She obliges me (and so must my sister in hindsight). The stairs creak as she makes her way down and I hear her rummage around the cd player in our living room, opening and closing cases. There is silence. Then the house fills with new age flutes and keys, the volume loud enough to reach up the stairs, through the tan hallway, past my blue carpet, and into my ears. I can't imagine how loud it must have been downstairs. The song is the first track on a CD called Collage I - a new age CD my mom bought in the early 90s. I can't find the song online anymore, so the opening notes only exists in my mind, in this whoosh of memory. I wonder how close to the actual melody I am.
The music continues as I start my 7 year old prayers, beginning with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be. I then name those closest me, each one by one, my mother, my father, my sister, my grandma Ruru, my grandfather Popi, my aunt and uncle, asking God to bless each of them individually, before asking him to bless the rest of my family, my friends, and the whole world. I repeat the list again, telling each name I love them, I do this every night before I let sleep take me.
But this isn't a happy memory or one of comfort and nostalgia - not for my old room, or for being 7 again. It's a sad memory.
I remember thinking of my mom downstairs, sitting alone in our kitchen. In my mind she is lonely, she sits quietly under the light, eating Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream, which I saw as her one happiness in a world I must have thought was cruel to her (if ice cream was her only comfort). All of the sad emotions my 7 year old mind could conjure, I put into that image of her downstairs.
And I start to cry. Then the memory ends.
I told my mom this years later and she laughed at how sweet she thought it was, never thinking about her ice cream that way - she saw it as a nice break from us, a way to read a magazine quietly, to recharge, and have some alone time before bed.
I wonder why I thought she was sad - I don't remember my mom being a sad person, or that she even shared much of her obvious stress of being a single mom. Maybe children are just perceptive to the tiniest changes in those they love the most? Maybe she made a comment once and it never left my brain? Maybe it's as simple as me wanting her to be happy?
I can still cry for this memory all these years later - that 7 year old is still me.
I'm proud of that.
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