Early Memories

​My earliest vivid memory is a snapshot, clear as yesterday, of our living room – a room etched into my mind’s eye, perhaps because my mother, never sold the house. It's a place I can always return to, and with a little imagination, conjure up the echoes of childhood. It stands as perhaps the one enduring landmark in my life, remarkably untouched by time. I can almost feel the smooth plastic of my toy cars, those beloved Hot Wheels, as I’d race them down the hall from my room, through the kitchen, and into that very living room. I’d come to a halt just beneath the front window, kneeling, pressing my small face against the cool glass, lost in a child’s wonder, eagerly awaiting the day I, too, could go to school like my older sisters. That fleeting moment is all I can truly grasp from those pre-school years. Of course, there are countless tales I’ve been told, stories I might have woven into false memories, but this, this is my first bona fide recollection. And I know it’s genuine because no one in our family would ever believe I actually looked forward to school!

​I can still see the red tiles beneath my knees and the walls, a soft, light blue – a truly contemporary 1960s vibe. Our semi-detached home, or duplex as some called it, boasted two driveways flanking the front yard, though they’d later merge into one grand, semicircular sweep. Five, perhaps six, trees graced the front: three stately white pines, a larger red pine, and a fragrant balsam fir. In later years, my grandfather, with his unending dedication, would attempt to cultivate a hedge along the front. It had its moments of glory, flourishing on and off for a time, but it always seemed to surrender, decaying into a scattered collection of lonely shrubs.

​In those early days, our street felt wonderfully unpopulated, with only a handful of other houses scattered like forgotten toys. The street beside us was truly wild, a vast expanse of nothing until you rounded the next block, save for a few homes clinging to the connecting avenues, just like ours. Later, all those avenues somehow transformed into mere “streets,” likely for the sake of convenience when the signs were changed. On our very own street, Mrs. W’s house sat directly across, the road. When I was five, Mr. W was still with us, but for most of my childhood, Mrs. W was a widow (until she remarried, only to become a widow once more). Mr. W, a former farmer who had retired to the village, tended a magnificent garden out back. I believe he passed away doing what he loved, a heart attack claiming him right there in his garden. More houses gradually joined our quiet street until, just before high school, it was finally complete. It felt like my entire youth was spent to the rhythmic symphony of hammers on nails, though those very first few years were tranquil, the building boom only truly arriving when I was seven or eight.

​The streets themselves remained unpaved for quite some time. I can still picture my granddad, having us rake stones away from the roadside ditches, convinced it would coax the grass into growing more verdantly. Our own driveway was a humble stretch of gravel, and the grass, ever persistent, would slowly reclaim it. Granddad would then enlist the entire family, pulling at stubborn weeds and grass, until, only when it became truly egregious, would a fresh truckload of gravel be delivered, replenishing what the encroaching green and the sandy soil of our corner of the town of Angus had swallowed whole. I’ll never forget the time my sister, mid-weed, yanked a particularly tenacious clump of grass, roots and all, exclaiming, “Now that’s a disreputable old sod!” My grandfather erupted into laughter, a sound that still brings a smile to my face, though I’m not sure my sister ever quite realized she had, in English slang, just playfully dubbed the grass a homosexual.

​Beyond our backyard, adjacent to us on Cecil Street, lay the great unknown, a wild expanse we simply called “the woods” or “the bush.” Further still, stretched the vastness of Raffy's field, though you had to trek a good 60 meters, or 100 feet as we then measured it, to truly reach it from our home. The woods themselves were a scrubby collection of poplar and white pines, with a smattering of other curious species thrown in for good measure. We had our own youthful, wildly inaccurate names for countless plants, and of course, there was the omnipresent poison ivy, which, inevitably, we discovered the hard way every single summer. Between the itchy embrace of poison ivy and the ceaseless buzz of mosquitoes, my summers were often an exercise in enduring discomfort.

​My absolute favorite spot at home was that small patch of grass nestled between the back of the house and the garden. It grew lush and green there, a brief oasis before the backyard surrendered to the encroaching woods, growing weedier and sparser. The sheer number of trees in the backyard seemed to wage a silent war on the grass, slowly stifling its growth. My granddad perpetually attempted to cultivate a garden out back. But the acidity from the pine needles we dutifully raked each year seemed to claim a significant portion of whatever he planted. I often wonder if his unwavering desire for a garden stemmed from his childhood in urban England, where the only way to have a garden was to capture one of the few allotments that the city set aside for family gardens. That being said, I do not recall if we ever reaped a bountiful harvest of vegetables, mostly just a whole lot of hard work and indelible memories.