This was the moment, if I had any agency as a toddler, I would have walked away from my family. I disagreed with my father–I mean really locked horns. Our farmer friend had given me a lamb to keep as a pet. Maybe he was even the same lamb I cradled as a newborn thatContinue reading “A Fundamental Disagreement”
Tag Archives: toddlerhood
Everything
Somewhere in New Zealand. We were befriended by a farmer and his wife when the Volvo broke down in front of their farm. They insisted we stay, not just for dinner, the whole night. I was little. Three, maybe four. In the morning, the farmer invited me to accompany him on his rounds. Just me.Continue reading “Everything”
Just a Dream
I had a dream about New Zealand. A dream so realistic I didn’t realize it was a dream; I thought it was a memory, and stored it as such. The beginning of childhood proper in America, the end of toddlerhood in New Zealand; I’d checked lots of memories with my older brother by this stage.Continue reading “Just a Dream”
New Shoe Smell
The first pair of shoes I remember: crimson leather mary janes, with an extra strap down the middle. I knelt in front of the open box on the dining room floor. As the sun streamed through the bay window, I lifted one onto my chair. The chair I sat in to eat every meal. TheContinue reading “New Shoe Smell”
Jane
When I was a baby, growing into a toddler, a neighborhood girl used to come over every day after school. I’m fuzzy on the details–I was so little. But my mother told me about her, later, after we left New Zealand: how Jane used to dote on me like a living doll. I don’t notContinue reading “Jane”
The Chickens
New Zealand. We had chickens. They were expected to lay eggs, but I don’t think they ever did. Our chicken coop was routinely raided by neighborhood dogs. Feathers, blood. Every chicken gone. Except one. A little brown bantam named Chicken Little would emerge from the straw, the shadows…She was mine. We’d get more chickens, andContinue reading “The Chickens”
Figaro
We had a cat in New Zealand and I don’t why. His name was Figaro, after the opera. All black, always on edge. Some of my earliest memories involve reaching a hand out to pat him and getting scratched, every time. I wanted to love him, but he didn’t seem to know it was possible;Continue reading “Figaro”
Still a Caterpillar
Sometimes I change my life so drastically it’s almost like killing myself. Moving blind from New York City to South Australia, from London to a San Francisco youth hostel, from Australia to an island off the coast of Maine. I focus on the beginning, the new. I don’t think about the old–the ghost of aContinue reading “Still a Caterpillar”
America
At some point when we lived in New Zealand–I think I was three–my mother took me to visit her home state of California. I don’t remember that trip. But back then, I’d logged it thusly: America is Disneyland. Disneyland was all I remembered. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, the whole gang: huge, smiling, waving, posing-for-photos, draping-an-arm-around-you, big-headedContinue reading “America”
Lowercase d
You start school on your fifth birthday in New Zealand. Or at least we did, back then. I did. There were lots of things I liked about school. I liked the walk to and from with my brother. I liked my uniform–a light blue cotton frock–that made me feel simultaneously special and just like everyoneContinue reading “Lowercase d”
