An echo coming back, reverberating softer now

I'm in a mood to write this evening, which usually means that my mind will flit from topic to topic and fail to bear fruit.  We'll see what I come up with, but for now I am lifting this post from my Facebook notes, titled 'October came like an echo.' 

Nostalgia hit me, so distant, like longing for a memory of a feeling and not the feeling itself. I remember being little, that much I recall.  I know I jumped in leaf piles because someone told me it would be fun, and I know that it wasn’t.  I remember climbing a tree and collecting a bowl of buckeyes for show and tell, and the epic foot-race against my best friend Derrick.  I remember bike rides so risky that I was actually hit by a car twice, though fights with Derrick caused far more injury.  I remember the tree swing that would always break and the big-tire sand box that I could jump over in a single leap.  I don’t know why the sound and smell of crunching leaves reminds me of 1507 Cincinnati Street, and I don’t know Derrick anymore – but I do still dream of bonfires with my family, and the backyard we sold. - JB 10/20/10

I think of Derrick often, actually.  He was my first best friend, and stayed one long after his mother moved out of his grandparents house next door.  We wandered the neighborhood with a freedom I don't expect I will ever permit to my own children, though I think it left us a real(er) childhood than many.


One of the comments on Facebook said that this writing made them sad for the loss of childhood and relationships never fully developed.  Not surprisingly, that poster gets me.  She is my mother.