I have been reborn. It could be taken that I am a reborn Christian, reborn human, reborn woman or even a reborn ingenuous, which would be more like it. Either way I have been reborn. The great part is it only took 42 years! Actually - 40 years in the making and 2 years labor and delivery.
My physical birthday is July 29, 1967. I am not sure what I was like when I first appeared. According to my mother I was a great baby but I really can’t rely on that because she was a little partial to that time in her life and may have looked back on it with some serious rose-colored glasses. My first memories are almost Norman Rockwell like. Playing in the snow with my father and older sister, mom leaning out the door to let us know that hot chocolate is ready. Taking walks with my father and holding his hand as bright yellow, red and orange leaves flutter about. Watching my dad run ahead of us pulling our sled down the middle of the snowed covered street. Swinging on the swings in our back yard with the sun’s golden rays beaming on the withered grass, pockets of yellow dandelions swaying in the breeze. Slinking out of bed when we were to be taking our naps.
With these memories I feel the sensations of the weather, the bedsprings, the noise but I cannot tell you how I felt. All of them seem like out of body snap shots of someone’s life. I am observing but not participating. Even most of the unpleasant memories are like this. I can guess how I feel but that is more of a common sense guess then an I know I felt this way. Take for instance the time my Tia Sabina made me walk to school in kindergarten by myself. I can see myself standing there telling her mom said noon and she is telling me nine. Next I see myself walking to school in no particular hurry swishing a stick around. Next I am walking into the kindergarten room where the teacher is playing the piano and kids are sitting around her singing B-I-N-G-O or Farmer in the Dell. I hear the music stop and see all the eyes looking towards the door with the notes last played on the piano slowly fading towards to the ceiling. Common sense tells me that I probably was scared, embarrassed and more then likely wanting to crawl under a rock and hide. But each snap shot is from behind a camera of some sort. I see Tia standing there and I see and hear the clock. The scene where I am walking is from across the street, I can actually see myself. The kindergarten situation I can see things from the right side of the classroom, almost to the north wall near the supply closet (which isn’t anywhere near the doorway) but I cannot see what everyone is looking at. Only that everything stopped and they are now staring. Senses but no feeling. Do other people remember this way?
The feelings that I do conjure up are dread, fearfulness and a wish to be invisible. I felt this way all the way up to 6th grade. Always observing and feeling the heaviness of doom and wanting to be there but with no attention on me. It really didn’t matter where I was. Home, grandma’s house, school or church.
I guess I can’t say quite it was always like that….there are some memories that I felt (saw) some good times. Rushing to my aunt’s house when grade school let out to watch “Monster Week”. Then going outside to reenact the Godzilla shows. Running down her basement stairs with my cousin Daniel behind me telling me to “hurry up Hasenpepper!” or some other word he picked up from a Bugs Bunny cartoon that struck him funny. Racing down the alley from her house to school and laughing because the “big bad dog” behind the fence didn’t catch us. I really don’t even know what or if there really was a man-eating dog there. It was just something my cousin’s would always tell me when we got to that point and they would run like hell, so I did too. I do know I felt fear then and exultation when we made it.
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