Wednesday, August 17, 2011

What's real in memory





















Trudging through my adult life
I tend to get caught up in the day to day
minutiae, especially when the overall tone
of the day is negative, sad, disappointing.
Then the little children in me bubble up,
begging me to remember the fun, the joy
of being free of responsibilities and playing.
I don't remember childhood that way
most days
I recall the power struggles with my parents
the abuse by their parents
the bullying at school and the
resultant frequent escapes into
reading, books, make believe.
The children remind me that the
escape was what was
fun and joyful.
I then take their hands and we skip to a golden
kingdom of our own imagining, and leave
the sadness and the work behind
for another day.



(Posted for Bluebell Books, Short Story Slam 8, 8/17/11)

5 comments:

  1. I can relate to your words on many levels. Reading, though, is the one that jumps out at me the most. I read voraciously as a child--still do--and it was, indeed an escape route. There were good times,to, and I hold tight to those memories.

    Here's my week 8 story: http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/amber-waves-of-grain/

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  2. It's so important to let the "child" inside take over now and again ... it maintains our sanity ... lets us look at life with a fresh perspective and renewed hope ... :)

    ~MISH~
    http://writer-in-transit.co.za/bluebell-sss-prompt-no-8-blind/

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  3. so very true... we sometimes get swept away by what we think is the innocence of children, only to forget what it was that we actually might have gone through ourselves :-)

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