It's always in the last place you look
Most of you that read my scratchings here, know that this is not the first incarnation of Blissed. A while back, before things came to an end with my husband, we had a fight, which in itself was unusual, as we had never fought in our 11 years together (paraphrasing my therapist, you should always worry if there is no conflict).
Anyway, the fight started over something he'd read on the blog, and resulted in me deleting Blissed, just...like...that, no backup. Initially, I was okay with the decision to delete the blog, but after a while...well here I am.
Today, I found a file lurking in a dark and dusty corner of my wee hard-disk. Odd that it should be a post from the original Blissed. Please indulge me while I post it again.
When I was a kid, every year, at least twice a year, my family would holiday at the same place. It was a small coastal town, sleepy and peaceful out-of-season, busy as hell over summer. Usually, we would meet up with another couple of families, so there were always friends at hand, they were boys, but I was a tomboy, so that was okay. But when I got sick of them, or they of me, I enjoyed making holiday-friends at the caravan park in which we always camped. Strangers from strange places, were always more interesting than the known quantities. We were kids on bikes, in the bbq smoke-haze of the early evening, in our pyjamas for a final cavort before bed, where the giggles persisted until sleep claimed us.
Fishing was the main pastime of the men-folk. I loved it too, so I would fish by my dad's side for hours, on those white as white, squeaky-sand beaches. Our lines were often heavy with bream, skipjack, whiting and the occasional flathead. Their silver bodies darted and flapped in the azure water as we wound them in, little mouths gasping for water as we de-hooked them and buried them in the sand, to keep them fresh. My dad taught me to clean fish when I was really little, and after a while, this was my job. Each fish was a mini-anatomy lesson, and I loved doling out the gut-largesse to the rabid seagulls, that flocked hitchcock-like around me as I cleaned. I could gut fish but I never could eat them.
The holiday town is relatively unchanged in 30 years, I still visit it, as my parents now live there. The other day I bought a bag of mixed lollies from our corner store (it is literally at our nearest corner), and in it, I found these:
I was instantly transported back to the caravan park, in the not quite dark, of a hot summer evening, a kid again in a gang of bikes, without a care in the world, ensuring I stayed out of earshot of my mother, lest she send me to bed. My kids got really peeved with me when I ate the teeth, but hey, memories like that are to good to pass up on.
Anyway, the fight started over something he'd read on the blog, and resulted in me deleting Blissed, just...like...that, no backup. Initially, I was okay with the decision to delete the blog, but after a while...well here I am.
Today, I found a file lurking in a dark and dusty corner of my wee hard-disk. Odd that it should be a post from the original Blissed. Please indulge me while I post it again.
When I was a kid, every year, at least twice a year, my family would holiday at the same place. It was a small coastal town, sleepy and peaceful out-of-season, busy as hell over summer. Usually, we would meet up with another couple of families, so there were always friends at hand, they were boys, but I was a tomboy, so that was okay. But when I got sick of them, or they of me, I enjoyed making holiday-friends at the caravan park in which we always camped. Strangers from strange places, were always more interesting than the known quantities. We were kids on bikes, in the bbq smoke-haze of the early evening, in our pyjamas for a final cavort before bed, where the giggles persisted until sleep claimed us.
Fishing was the main pastime of the men-folk. I loved it too, so I would fish by my dad's side for hours, on those white as white, squeaky-sand beaches. Our lines were often heavy with bream, skipjack, whiting and the occasional flathead. Their silver bodies darted and flapped in the azure water as we wound them in, little mouths gasping for water as we de-hooked them and buried them in the sand, to keep them fresh. My dad taught me to clean fish when I was really little, and after a while, this was my job. Each fish was a mini-anatomy lesson, and I loved doling out the gut-largesse to the rabid seagulls, that flocked hitchcock-like around me as I cleaned. I could gut fish but I never could eat them.
The holiday town is relatively unchanged in 30 years, I still visit it, as my parents now live there. The other day I bought a bag of mixed lollies from our corner store (it is literally at our nearest corner), and in it, I found these:
I was instantly transported back to the caravan park, in the not quite dark, of a hot summer evening, a kid again in a gang of bikes, without a care in the world, ensuring I stayed out of earshot of my mother, lest she send me to bed. My kids got really peeved with me when I ate the teeth, but hey, memories like that are to good to pass up on.
Labels: childhood memories, sharing
posted by Callisto at
3/24/2007 09:15:00 PM
9 Comments:
I remember that post C... it was a goodie!
Tripping over old posts must be like tripping over old memories... I have a space allocated on me 'Brain' of a memory stick, that's just for my incomplete yarns - things I've been playinf with - ideas I might have had. It's fun to go back and read most of them... scary looking at the rest.
Glad you tripped over it C - 'twas sad to see you go then - but NOW - you're back!
;-)
very, very nice.
holiday as a verb...you aussies are so quaint.
i recall the days of going to the dime store for wax lips, sparkler guns, and those little "spy" cameras that really had film, but we never really seemed to get developed.
days at the beach, lolling in the surf, followed by the disturbing sensations of your head spinning later when trying to get to sleep because your equilibrium somehow got all messed up from the wave action.
I used to get soo excited about wax lips at Halloween when I would find them in amongst the candy apples, sugar cookies, etc. But the IDEA of them was always much more appealing than the REALITY of them. After the first nansecond of flavor it was just a mouth full of dry chalky wax.
Belongum, I love memory stick, that's fantastic imagery. And thank you as ever for being so kind.
Happy to be quaint anytime for you Rich ;) Those spy cameras sound ace (what a dag I am using that phrase). I must admit that I never suffered from after-surf head spins, my main ailment from those times was sunburn.
I've really no idea what wax lips are, I think I want to know, but after your lovely reminiscences MT, I fear disappointment may result from the new-found knowledge.
oh wow...i had the king of all sunburn during the summer of '76 when we played on a boat on the ocean all day without sunscreen....i vividly remember watching the closing ceremonies of the montreal olympics in a great deal of pain
Blissed in any form is a highlight of my day.
Original Blissed will live on forever, even if it has been deleted.
Long live Blissed!
To be one of the highlights of your day, Wombat, makes my day.
Yes, it will live on forever, especially when evidence of it like this, cannot be removed from this wondrous place we call cyberspace.
you know it's funny - when you deleted old blissed i knew it had been because of something to do with your (ex) husband. nothing you had said, just the bits between what you had said. and that's why when you finally explained about the divorce somehow it wasn't a surprise.
it sounds insane to say 'i knew you were going to divorce because you had to delete your blog' but it seemed like an important thing, even if only metaphorically.
one of those tell-tale signs...
"one of those tell-tale signs..."
Indeed.
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