Stuck In Some Childhood Memories

           After my last post about commitment, I turn a page.  I figure if I keep drowning in my dreadful feelings no one will want to read my blog.  There’s that thought, too, rattling away in my skull that tells me if I talk about Easter and suicide too much a white van will drive up and try to fit me for one of those jackets where the sleeves tie in the back. 

            A writing companion suggests reaching back into your childhood for memories that stand out in your mind to write about.  Here are some ideas for me to explore.

            I got locked in an outhouse once when I was a child.  We went up to my second cousin’s house on a mountain in north Alabama.  Her house didn’t have indoor plumping, so when I had to pee, I was shocked that I had to go outside.  I traipsed off behind the house and went inside a wooden shack where a hole was cut into a wooden box big enough to sit on.  The door, I guess, had a habit of flying open in the wind, so not only was there a latch on the inside for privacy, there was a small rectangular piece of wood on a nail on the outside that turned horizontal to keep the door shut when no one was in there.  The wind (or my sister) turned it sideways just after I went inside.        I    was     in      there      f-o-r-e-v-e-r       before   Mom    come   looking   for   me.

            I think I was six or seven when I got electrically stuck to a water faucet at an almost finished new house that Daddy built.   The electricity wasn’t ground yet, and when I went for a drink of water from the faucet outside, the electrical current grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go.  Mom rescued me again by slapping me away from the handle.  My hair stood out like a sizzling-crown for hours. 

            When I was four, (I’m trying to bury this memory deep into the middle of this post) I got my tongue stuck to the freezer part of the refrigerator.  Mom came into the kitchen to find the fridge door open, my tippy-toed feet on one of the shelves propping me up as my tongue stretched out along the frosted ice.  She panicked and ran her hand under my tongue, leaving lots of it behind.  My dad kept asking, “My God, Karen, what were you thinkin’?  But, I couldn’t answer.

            When I was eight, I jumped, leaped actually like a ballet dancer, over our old floor furnace and got a two-inch wood-floor splinter stuck in my foot.  Mom and I didn’t realize how deep it went until I got blood poisoning and had to have surgery.

            At fourteen, I dropped a carton of Cokes, the returnable glass kind, on my right foot.  The glass cut the main artery.  I was with my sister then.  She wanted to take me home to Mom, but finally realized I might bleed to death and took me to the hospital.  I think it was a tough choice for her.

Love,

Karen