I have always had a difficult time remembering what it was like to be 10 or younger.  It amazes me when someone can recall something from their young childhood.  An elementary teacher’s name, a family vacation or holiday, anything actually.  When my brother reminisces about something that happened to us as kids I usually just nod and say, “Right, I remember that”, while inside I’m thinking “Really?  Was I there for that?”.  Anyone who knows me might think that I chalk my lack of childhood memories up to early Alzheimer’s or some other deadly brain disease.  Admittedly, I do have that tendency but more often these days I think it is something else.  I think it is more about our internal, and probably unconscious, choice to remember certain things or not.  A choice that arises from some event or circumstance.  This is a little reminiscent of my “Time vs. Memories” post, which you can read here:  Time vs Memories.

As I have written before, I was four and a half when I was hospitalized in New York City for about a month.  You would think that there would be a lot of memories of this time.  Frightening memories of strange doctors and nurses, cold lonely rooms and beeping machines.  Or maybe just tiny snippets of scattered and faded moments that would give a brief peek into my world as it was then.   But try as I might I just cannot conjure anything up.  I speculate now that this is when everything changed, my memories became spotty and my kitchen table became a bit more crowded.  

Although I have trouble remembering many events of my childhood, there are some things that I can see vividly.  Like this one.  

The young family lived in a small two bedroom apartment in northern New Jersey until the girl was almost 5.  The apartment building was shaped like a cube with a courtyard in the middle.  The front door of the apartment led to the courtyard.  They really never used this door, mostly coming and going from the back door where the parking lot was.  Between the parking lot and the back door, there was a small yard complete with a swing set or maybe it was a metal clothesline.  The kind that you can raise and lower like an umbrella.  There is a black and white picture of the little girl wearing a ballerina outfit, crown and all, in this yard.  

   The apartment had two floors.  The kitchen was at the back door.  It was a small, bright room.  The little girl often played on the linoleum floor, next to the small refrigerator.   Next, there was a dining area.  You couldn’t really call it a room.  It was just that transitional in-between space that led to the living room, which was at the front of the apartment.  Next to the front door, was a large rectangular window from which you could see the courtyard.  The little girl thinks she remembers kneeling on the couch and looking out this window.  

Finally, across from the front door was the stairway that led to the two bedrooms and bathroom.  The girl can see all of this clearly but only in black and white and only until the stairway.  There the picture stops altogether.  She gazes up the stairs from the bottom step but everything above her is fuzzy.  The thing about the second floor is that, while she cannot picture it, she knows it is there.  That is where they slept.  

It’s funny.  She can’t remember anything beyond the bottom step but she can remember the scarce, modular furniture downstairs; the low lighting in the apartment; and the window.  

Besides this blueprint, she has no memories but one.  Every night before bed Mom read her a story, usually Sleeping Beauty, her favorite.  She didn’t like to go to sleep.  She was afraid of the dark and being alone with the door closed.  So every night once Mom was finished Dad would come up.  By then he had changed out of his suit.  With him would come a piece, sometimes two, of white American cheese.  Her favorite cheese.  A bedtime snack.  A treat from Dad, who had been gone all day.  This was her moment with him.  After tucking her in he would sit on the side of her bed offering the treat like a special secret they shared.  The girl always looked forward to this ritual.  Knowing that the day was really over and sleep was the only option once the cheese was finished.  In later years as she remembered this time, she thought that this must be why he called her “Mouse”.