Throw the bean bag, and catch
turn around, turn around, stamp stamp stamp (repeat 3x)
-Lyrics, Throw the Bean Bag Song
This song played in my pre-school's music room, a rounded room down the hall and two steps off the floor from my little classroom. The room was well lit, carpeted from wall-to-wall, likely to break our falls as we tried in vain to keep up with the song's commands. The words have stuck with me for over 30 years - a strange artifact of a time I barely remember, but I feel like I should.
As I reflect back on my youth, I'm disappointed in how few memories I have. Especially about big stuff. I don't remember my parents' divorce, having chicken pox, my first day of school, or anything that would constitute a major life event. Instead I have little images of the mundane, some of them stills, like old photos, and some of them with enough vitality to have movement, but even then it's no longer than a second or two, and none of them mean much to me when I try to piece together who I am.
I remember our neighbor's rusted basketball hoop out on the street - just next to the street light - that I'd spend hours playing at, usually by myself. In my memory it's dusk in the late fall and I can feel the cold on my fingers and the hot sweat on my neck, a combination only a child could endure. I remember their yard had an incline behind the hoop, green grass under a red maple, something to pass back to me when I missed too low or too wide. I had my little team out there, the street light, tall and immovable, like Patrick Ewing in the low post, my green grass, to grab my misses and pass back to me like Charles Oakley, and then me, always finding a way to hit the winner before going inside.
I remember the feel of the carpet in our den, where the TV was until the computer replaced it. It was a cream color. In my head it feels soft and clean as my matchbox cars roll smoothly through the little worlds I create. My sister is there, but not really - she is watching TV on the couch while I exist on the floor. I don't reach for the hot-rods or monster trucks, but the minivans and sedans. I don't imagine big adventures, but daily errands and speed limits. In this world people went about their normal days, and I got to go with them, a kid in a minivan, just like I always wanted.
I don't remember conflict, even though there must have been a lot. My parents divorced when I was 3, and resentment, money, relationships, and neglect swirled around my little world for years after. But I don't remember it. My mom even took me to therapy after the divorce, but I don't remember that either, nor do even know why she thought I should go 30 years later.
So why do I remember these little things but not the big things? Why can I remember the words to a song I heard a few times 33 years ago, but I can't remember my dad leaving? The memory of the bean bag song is longer than the memory I have of hearing it, I can imagine the blue bean bag going in the air, my hands stretched to catch it before the memory goes black. But the music still plays after the memory stops.
I don’t remember if I caught it.
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