childhood – Page 3 – hannah ananas

How do You shave?

One of my favorite memories from my childhood is the time my brother, sister, and I bonded over shaving legs in the living room. You see, our dad’s house used to be a duplex, and so the upstairs and downstairs had the same floorpan, giving the girls – the upstairs lots – our very own living room. It was normal circumstances for us girls and maybe a girlfriend of one of theirs to hang out on lazy afternoons and evenings there. Occasionally, our bother would join us. On one particular night, my eldest sister had decided to allow me to shave her legs for her, while we watched some television show. I was around eight or ten years old.

In my panic of doing it, worried that I would slice open her leg or something, my brother joined in on the adventure, to show that it was definitely doable by me, since he had never shaved legs, but he was able to do it safely. And so, he shaved her left leg, and I shaved her right, while she lay on the rug in the living room. Such beautiful sibling bonding time. 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Cleaning out = unexpected exhaustion

I’m kind of exhausted. And kind of feel like crying and curling up in a ball.
There have been a LOT of memories going through this stuff. And, with that, has naturally come Loads of emotions. Lots of them quite strong, too.
I guess that’s a big part of why I kept the stuff.

And as of this morning, I find myself not wanting to take on cleaning out and going through anything else right now. Like I need a vacation from it.

Especially since so much of my stuff is disorganized amongst the various boxes, the task feels more exhausting. Because, rather then opening up a box and re-living fifth grade, I open up a single box and am going through parts of fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and possibly even a memory or three from before and after those years. And going through the memories of those years isn’t just ‘going through memories’. It’s also re-experiencing the emotions and thoughts and thought patterns of it all. So, in cleaning through one box, I am living several years – and from the very formative years – of my life in a matter of an hour or few. Talk about exhausting… that is exhausting.

And I want a break from it for a little while, so my mind and my nerve endings can relax again and not be so constantly overwhelmed.

Post-a-day 2018

Cleaning out, finding magnificence

I found one of the boxes that contained my childhood writing yesterday. I mostly did poetry, but this one had some of my vocabulary paragraphs and my topic-writes and free-writes. Therefore, it’s about to get middle-school-original up in here, and very soon. ;D

Post-a-day 2018

Kill Bill and Mailboxes

Have you ever seen “Kill Bill”? It’s a spectacular film (and set, actually), and I fell in love with it when I was around the time of middle school. My eldest brother was in college, and he had me watch it with him one time. I was enthralled. I couldn’t tell if I actually wanted to be like Uma Thurman in the film, or if I just liked marveling at her humbly.

It ended up being one of the few pieces of Japanese culture that has stuck with me (before I moved to Japan, that is). Not that the film is Japanese itself – it just has Japanese things in it, specifically a samurai-like relationship to swordsmanship and fighting. Quentin Tarantino was the first director whose name I remembered, as well as the first whose style I learned to identify. I’m not sure I would have been a fan had I not seen Kill Bill as my first full exposure to him and his style. However, I absolutely love his directing, and therefore end up loving movies that otherwise make little sense at my being a fan of them (blood and gore and anger are really not my thing).

All of this aside, however, something from the Kill Bill films stuck with me even stronger than anything else. The scene where the money briefcase is opened, revealing loads of cash, and then, suddenly, as a chunk of cash is removed, a poisonous snake shoots out and bites the man who opened the case, killing him. It is such a sudden event, and it includes such a confirmation of the guy’s mortality, that it hit me hard. While I mentally am totally comfortable with the scene, I suppose there is a sort of psychological response that I had not anticipated would last for so long as it has: I don’t stand in front of the mailbox to open it. I stand to one side, and open the box. Then, I lean over to see inside the box, still at an angle to it. Once I have verified the absence of any snake, I then reach in and pull out the mail.

This was an immediate response to having seen this scene. It was intentionally done, each time I went to check the mail. Now, more than 15 years later, I still do it. I kind of chuckled at myself today, as I noticed that I was doing it, completely unaware of what I was in the process of doing – avoiding a snake attack. I mean, seriously, a snake in my mailbox? Possible, but insanely unlikely.

Like I mentioned, it might be something psychological deep down… but it also could be just that I grew so accustomed to doing it intentionally, that I ended up sticking with it unintentionally, even after the snake idea was long out of my mind. I find the latter to be more likely than anything else.

But I could just be crazy. That would explain a lot, I imagine. 😛

Post-a-day 2017

my childhood bestie

I talked with my childhood best friend tonight. It was wonderful. We haven’t talked much in the past year, simply because she’s been busy as ever, and I’ve been over in Japan. We still weren’t in the same place tonight (Facebook Messenger video chatting), but being in the same city really helps with the timing thing.

Talking with her always brings up loads of memories from my early childhood, most of them wonderful. There are only a handful of not-so-good ones, though they were all rather impactful. Mostly, though, the good memories come to mind.,. Like the time she and I watched “Lake Placid”, shortly after seeing “Deep Blue Sea”, and we ended up jumping all around on her furniture after the film, somewhat joking, but also somewhat paranoid that a gator would pop out from under the sofas and eat our legs off… Or the time my mom was at work, and my friend invited me to come over, so I left my mom a message on her pager, telling her when and where I was going, and I very clearly stated the phone number of my friend’s house, and repeated it (even though she could look up the number in the school phone book once she was home, if needed), just as was desired if I were to go anywhere while she was gone…, even to be complimented on it later by my mom, but told that I unfortunately had given my mom my mom’s number, not my friend’s house. Those might have even been from the same day…, though I really don’t remember for sure.

For my birthday one year, she and her mom decided to give me some money and a gift bag of macaroni and cheese boxes. Almost every time I went to their house, I would end up eating mac ‘n’ cheese, so they decided it was a perfect present for me. I loved it, of course, for the pure genius of it, as well as the love and attention that went into the present, despite its being quite simple. I really did love mac ‘n’ cheese.

There are two sad memories that always come to mind regarding this best friend. Though, one of them was actually kind of happy, because of what it meant to me. The one memory, the more sad one, was when we were riding the bus for a field trip, and she and I were playing a hand game. She was sitting by the window, back to the window/wall, and I the same for the aisle. The game was this one:

That’s the way
Uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it.
Uh-huh, uh-huh
That’s the way
Uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it.
Uh-huh, uh-huh
I got the looks.
You got the books.
Splish, splash
In your face.
Brick wall, waterfall
Girl, you think you know it all.
You don’t.
I do.
So *poof* with the attitude.

On the *poof*, my friends and I usually made an effort to face palm the other person somewhat, pushing her head away as part of the “Talk to the hand” gesture. However, not everyone did this, I discovered, so, shall we say, competitively as I did. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to face palm someone else, as I wanted to do it first, so as to avoid having it done to me. Well, when the *poof* came along, I was ready and prepared, and I pushed a little harder than necessary in my haste to be first, and my best friend’s head knocked backward against the window with a good noise. I was instantly remorseful, and her immediate upset hurt like no physical pain can. I still feel bad about that now, years and years later, though not in the same, sad way.

The other sad memory was the morning before school that she called me while I was showering. My mom came and brought me the phone while I was in the shower, telling me it was my best friend. I wondered why she was calling so early in the morning, it was even a little excited about the phone call. However, the news of the phone call was not good: angel, her dog, had died that morning. She was calling to let me know, because she knew that I loved Angel, too. Well I was incredibly sad about Angel, one of my favorite dogs, I was also incredibly grateful for the friendship I had – for that is a powerful friendship to make a call so early in the morning about something that could have waited until we got to school. But she wanted me to know before the rest of the world. I was and still am honored.

Gosh, now I have loads of memories piled up with this friend, and memories keep diving into the piles, turning them into something more like a mountain range. I used that only makes sense, when we’re talking about a childhood best friend – there’s so much time and joy and learning spent together as kids. Now she has kids of her own, and almost all I want to do is everything I can to help them have the best possible upbringing in the world.

Post-a-day 2017

A compliment to remember

About a year or two ago (though, I think it was two years ago), I received one of the most memorable compliments I have ever been given. I was reminded of it today, as my mom and I drove around in the sunny daylight that was following our storm so nicely. With all of the rain and flooding, many people have pulled out their trucks and boats, and gone to the rescue of those in need of water transportation in areas that formerly were roads (and which, I suppose, likely still are, just beneath all that water now). For this reason, I was reminded of a particular friend of mine who has a boat. (Or, at least, he did have a boat when we last were in touch. Currently, I’m not so sure, because we simply haven’t been much in touch since I moved to Japan.)

This particular friend was a childhood friend. In fact, he was one of the neighborhood kids. I secretly – or so I thought – had crushes on him and his brothers when we were all little, and we all would play together all along the street, the whole lot of kids. Anyway, as everyone moved off to college and parents moved off the street, a lot of us rather lost touch. Here in there, though, we each would see others briefly in life. About two years ago, this happened for me with this particular friend and his brothers.

We were at a country-western bar/dance club in Houston, and I recognized them. Sure, they were all massive men compared to the last time I had seen them, when they were all possibly in college. Big and strong, burly men was an easy way to describe the guys who stood before me in this bar. I was amazed, though delighted – I guess scrawny little boys can grow up to be big, strong men, after all. 😛

It was as I was talking with one of them that the memorable compliment came. He said to me simply, “You’re gorgeous.” And he said it multiple times. I’m not sure how many times exactly, but I know that it was more than once. What really stood out about it was not so much the words (though they were amazing), as how he said them. I can still hear it, even, it was so impactful. He did not say them in any condescending way – ‘How unexpected that you would be gorgeous,’ – or as though he were hitting on me – ‘Hey, let’s go to my place, gorgeous.’ He was simply stating something he believed, and earnestly, with feeling. It reminded me of how girlfriends (true ones, not the fake kind) might talk to the girlfriend who has just found the perfect dress for something, and is thrilled, or who is all dressed up for a big date or presentation or her wedding – there is no jealousy or dishonesty, but pure love and honesty in the declaration of her being gorgeous in that dress. He wasn’t being sleazy, but truly gentleman-like, and it was amazing. It really was.

And that was it.

Because of this brief interaction I had with this friend, he has remained in my regular thoughts these past couple-ish years. Every so often, I am reminded of him, and I am grateful for him, and I wonder how he is doing (and I usually get distracted by something or other before I am able to send him any kind of message to check in, but I occasionally manage it). This weekend especially, I have wondered how he is doing, over and over again, and I finally managed, after however many days this storm has been, to check in with him. It was brief, but I made contact and found out that he and his family are doing okay. They all hold special places in my heart, because of their various roles in my childhood, but he has an especially dear one, thanks to his beautiful compliment, whenever that was.

Post-a-day 2017

Movies, oh, movies

When I was little, I saw the films “JAWS”, “Deep Blue Sea”, and “Lake Placid”. They all sport a main character/predator who is an oversized water creature, the first two having a shark main character and the third an alligator. (Though I now realize that it could have been a crocodile, I still believe that it was an alligator, because I do not remember its having a really long and narrow snout.)

Suffice to say that these movies succeeded in terrifying me of the ocean, of lakes, and of swimming in general. Now, seeing as swimming was a large part of my family’s life, as was the beach, I learned to manage these fears (i.e. realize that, I just had to let it go if I wanted to swim, or at least accept the fear alongside the joys of swimming). This mostly meant that I was typically initially hesitant to enter the water at the beach, and always preferred being with others in the water – not to be grimm, but the probability of being the one nabbed decreased, the more people who were out there with me in the water. No, I didn’t want anyone to be nabbed, but I had a high sense of self-preservation.

Whenever I was on my own in the water, I occasionally would recall the possibility of sharks as I was walking toward the shore, and suddenly would find myself jumpily sprinting out of the water (jumpily, because it is easier to run through water, when you pick your legs all the way up out of it, doing a sort of hopping dance forward, which becomes more and more like normal running as you get closer to shore, and the water level goes lower and lower).

The interesting thing – to me, anyway – about this fear, is how it transferred to pools for me. With others, I never had concerns (as I recall, anyway). However, put me on my own in the backyard pool at my brothers’ dad’s house, and I’d occasionally start to freak. It was a weird sort of freak-out, because I logically knew that I was totally fine and safe, but surface-level panicked and rushed out of the water suddenly anyway.

It would happen like this: I would be in the water, usually swimming casually toward one side or end of the pool, and suddenly have this thought that someone could have opened up a secret panel behind me on the pool wall, and released a shark. At the point of this thought’s occurrence, I would put all my effort in swim sprinting to my aimed-for wall, and climb manically from the pool, panting. I think I even scratched up my stomach and/or legs in my haste a handful of times.

It was illogical, and yet I completely understood why I had the bizarre fear, and I accepted it as a weird and unrealistic fear, even as a little kid.

Fast forward a good many years, and where do I stand? The last time I was alone in a pool, about a year ago now, I still had to turn my head, just to check to make sure no panel had slid open behind me. No, I wasn’t sent rushing to the walk and out of the pool, but I still had to respond to the thought and the sense of panic that was rising within me. Essentially, the panic and fear is significantly lessened, but totally still there. If I don’t think about it, I’m totally fine. The moment I think about it, I’m slightly paranoid, and sinultaneously annoyed at my nonsensical paranoia.

Such is my life around pools (and also the earlier bits regarding my life with beaches). I think this is why I just don’t want horror films. Ever. The few scary films I saw as a kid were enough for me*, and each had enough impact on me to cause me never to want to watch scary movies again. So I think, anyway.
*”Scream”, “Scream 2”, and “Anaconda” still stick with me today, as well as the shark and gator movies.

Post-a-day 2017