Laundry List of Childhood Memories and Dreams

I found this in one of my piles today.

As a child in the '70s and '80s, I wanted to:

...be a ballerina

...be a model
...to look like Jayne Kennedy or Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe
...be a writer
...live near my extended family in Galveston
...live by the sea
...be better in gym class
...be a leader
...be a cheerleader
...wear makeup and pantyhose
...always protect my younger brother
...be a singer
...play the flute
...to play the daughter of the onscreen superhero, Isis and hang with Samantha of Bewitched
...to visit far away places like England and France
...to spend more time with Daddy
...to have a rabbit fur jacket
...to change the world-- especially South Africa
...for us to have extra money to spend on going to places like White Water, Sesame Place, International Wildlife Park and Malibu
...to travel back in time like people travel to cities

Things I actually did as a child:

Collected stones and sea shells

Listened to "black music" and "symphony music" on my big, blue pair of transistor headphones

Roller skated on the sidewalks in the neighborhood and at Starlite skating rink

Played jacks, Uno, concentration, Crazy 8's and Boggle

Bossed my little brother around

Drew pictures

Wrote notes to cute boys

Read Laura Ingalls Wilder, Encyclopedia Brown, Scott O'Dell and Mildred D. Taylor books

Savored every summer and Christmas vacation spent with my extended family in Galveston

Wrote simple books and songs

Babysat a couple of kids named Talisha and B.J.

wore cornrows or an afro jheri curl

Played in mama's makeup

Got in trouble for playing in mama's makeup

Went to slumber parties

Watched a lot of television-- especially loved Fame, Gimme a Break and The Cosby Show as well as soap operas like Dallas, Dynasty, All My Children and the Young and the Restless

Played clarinet-- badly :)

Taught myself to ride a bike after getting over the fear of falling off

Got chased by dogs

could identify familiar songs after hearing a few notes

Experimented with making culinary concoctions

Made sock dolls, doll clothes and quilt patches

Collected Archie comics

Had a good sense of direction and could help visiting family members navigate their way throughout parts of the city familiar to me

Jumped rope, played hand games, freeze tag, Stop and Go and Simon Says with the other kids at Mrs. Ola Mae Giddings daycare

Drooled over Taimak, Tony Dorsett, Todd Bridges, Gregory Harrison, Ralph Macchio, Joe Montana, Rob Lowe

Plastered my bedroom walls with every Michael Jackson poster I could find

The Constant Struggle

Let me go on and admit it. I have recurrent fantasies of keeping an orderly, austere work space like something out of Real Simple magazine. Chalk it up to me being a Virgo, but I often sit at my desk giving sidelong glances to piles as if to warn them: "You're next!" and I truly wish I could surrender to my urge to indiscriminately toss stuff. Sadly, friends, this is not me. I've spent too much time writing down my words and collecting those of others. My altruistic aim is to string these ideas together like little beads of light and, in one way or another, share them like a devotee of Sophia, I suppose.

And so, I horde. (Sigh and weary smile.)

To my credit, since moving in to this new space I've tossed and shredded God knows how many pounds of paper. But it doesn't take long though for a flood of new paper to replace the paper I have heroically banished from my space. The mail man and my own compulsion aid in the conquest and get the better of my Real Simple fantasy. Still, as Jesse Jackson used to say, I am keeping hope alive!

Today was fairly productive. Though I have not yet done the laundry or cooked a quick meal for the week, what I have done is added to a piece of creative nonfiction that I'm writing about my grandmother and weeded through some of the paper I have crammed in binders, filling up journals and the like. In the midst of it, I began thinking: what better place than a blog to serve as home to some of these thoughts? And so you should expect to see periodic posts from this archive, beginning today.

Paper dragon, I may indeed slay you!