Cari-bein'

Earning Interest at the Memory Bank

A couple of memories from my toddler-hood have bubbled to the surface in the last few days...and they led to a couple of interesting insights.

One memory came sputtering up as I was lying in corpse pose in bed doing some deep breathing, right before slumber overtook me and put me out for five hours a couple of nights ago. I was three. My father was a teacher and coach at the high school. There was a prom for seniors called "The Queen's Ball." As a faculty kid, I was asked to carry the crown at the ball. If you could see of picture of my 3-year-old self in my long, pink, poufy gown, you'd probably think I looked adorable. Here's the part I can't remember (I'll have to ask my mother)--it doesn't seem like my parents accompanied me there, but surely they must have. The ball (like all proms in the olden days) was held in the gym. When it came time for the coronation, the Queen sat on her elevated stage with her court and I was supposed to walk across the gym floor to the stage, carrying her tiara on a satin pillow. All of the kids attending the prom formed two long lines between me and the stage. Those teenagers looked enormous to me. It was like they wanted me to run the gauntlet. Of course I didn't know what a gauntlet was at three, but that's the kind of fear I felt in that moment. I froze--couldn't move. Finally, Bill, who was a senior and lived across the street (the son of dear family friends), walked over and took me by the hand and led me to the stage. Then I felt okday; he was a familiar face, I knew him.

When that memory appeared from literally nowhere the other night, it was accompanied by this thought: Ooooooh, I'll bet that's my earliest conscious memory of an experience where my fear held me back. Ding!

The second memory I recalled a few days ago. It was an experience that for some reason came to mind while my mother was here recently. She told the boyfriend about it over dinner one night, because he'd never heard the story. Again, I was three (Traumatic year! I also had a tonsillectomy that year.) We lived in a little house that my Italian great-grandmother owned. It was an old house and it had metal heating grates in the floors. The heat would rise up through the grates. To live in that house with a toddler, my parents must have had me well-trained to avoid walking over those grates. It was Halloween. My mother says that trick-or-treaters rang the doorbell and in my excitement to run to the door, I ran across the very hot grate that was in the doorway separating the living room and kitchen. I was barefoot. Whenever this story comes up, my mother always talks about my screams--how she never again heard me scream like that. Thankfully, I have no memory of burning my feet. What I do remember is seeing the grid-like pink marks that it left on the soles of my feet. But they faded and there were no permanent scars.

It didn't occur to me when my mother and I were discussing it a month ago, but when I suddenly remembered that incident a few days ago, this came with it: I'll bet that's the genesis of my anxiety (more of an anxiety than a full-blown fear) about walking across metal grates in the street. If you walked down a city sidewalk with me (even now), you'd notice a hesitation in my step whenever I come across any kind of metal grating in the sidewalk. I've gotten to a point where I can walk across grates (I used to have to always walk around them), but it always makes me momentarily anxious to do so. And I've never understood why...until now. Ding! Ding!

Don't you just love it when previously traumatic experiences finally freakin' pay off?!

posted by Marilyn @ 5:29 AM