My husband spent his childhood in Lahore and Karachi (in the 1950s) and when he and I went to live in Mallorca in the 1990s I know that there were so many sights and smells and sounds there that catapulted him back to Lahore. Me, too, from visits there, but a visit during adulthood however full of excitement and impressions is not the same as childhood memories. Bougainvillea, yes. And our neighbour's Caqui tree (loquat). Sometimes the way the sunlight hits buildings, just as you describe. Markets full of mountainous piles of melons and figs (oh, figs) and just about every fruit or vegetable I'd ever heard of. People living lives that had far more in common with his childhood experience than anything that came after. Much has changed since. This wonderful essay brought a lot of things flooding back!
How you describe your observations reminds me of a favorite poet of mine, Ted Kooser. It pulls me in & I imagine experiencing the story myself. And yes it does make me reminiscent of warm times in my past. I am grateful to have had the safe & good to break up the not so good. Thank you for writing the way you do.
Greenish fields take me back seventy years. It was the second Polio outbreak and my mother thought it was safer to take me out of the suburbs where we lived out to "the country". My grandparents took me by train -I remember the compartment, it´s bed and fascinating diminute bathroom- to Santa Fe, about 500 Km away, to my godmother's house, whom I hadn't met, and lived in a quite isolated farm. She and her husband rose before dawn and took a siesta after lunch but allowed me to wander around in the field meanwhile. I remained in that little house with my loving godmother for almost a year, full of sweet memories of her and a bitter feeling of abandonment from my mother. Then, when I felt fully at home there, my grandparents came to bring me back to Buenos Aires.
So, whenever I see green fields and or hear the sound of crickets, I go back to walking around the litlle house, looking for the singing cricket, noticing the different kinds of plants...
My husband spent his childhood in Lahore and Karachi (in the 1950s) and when he and I went to live in Mallorca in the 1990s I know that there were so many sights and smells and sounds there that catapulted him back to Lahore. Me, too, from visits there, but a visit during adulthood however full of excitement and impressions is not the same as childhood memories. Bougainvillea, yes. And our neighbour's Caqui tree (loquat). Sometimes the way the sunlight hits buildings, just as you describe. Markets full of mountainous piles of melons and figs (oh, figs) and just about every fruit or vegetable I'd ever heard of. People living lives that had far more in common with his childhood experience than anything that came after. Much has changed since. This wonderful essay brought a lot of things flooding back!
How you describe your observations reminds me of a favorite poet of mine, Ted Kooser. It pulls me in & I imagine experiencing the story myself. And yes it does make me reminiscent of warm times in my past. I am grateful to have had the safe & good to break up the not so good. Thank you for writing the way you do.
Doyce Kolb
Green.
Greenish fields take me back seventy years. It was the second Polio outbreak and my mother thought it was safer to take me out of the suburbs where we lived out to "the country". My grandparents took me by train -I remember the compartment, it´s bed and fascinating diminute bathroom- to Santa Fe, about 500 Km away, to my godmother's house, whom I hadn't met, and lived in a quite isolated farm. She and her husband rose before dawn and took a siesta after lunch but allowed me to wander around in the field meanwhile. I remained in that little house with my loving godmother for almost a year, full of sweet memories of her and a bitter feeling of abandonment from my mother. Then, when I felt fully at home there, my grandparents came to bring me back to Buenos Aires.
So, whenever I see green fields and or hear the sound of crickets, I go back to walking around the litlle house, looking for the singing cricket, noticing the different kinds of plants...
Wonderful, Danny. It's a story that evokes emotions and memories, and I can't really say what of. I was spell-bound.