Category Archives: memories

light the corners of my mind

memories, parenthood, video Leave a comment

Talking of the Butter for the Royal Slice of Bread

Connor is able to sit through slightly longer stories with slightly fewer pictures as he gets older and his attention span and comprehension gets a little better. In his collection of books (and he does have quite the collection, most of which belonged to his Dad and his uncle back in the day), there are a few titles that I used to have as a child — like the Better Homes and Gardens Story Book.

My Mom says I was able to read at age three (my son’s age now), but my memories of laying on my floor and reading this book on my own are more around age 5 or 6, I think. It’s a collection of stories and poems, and I had some favorites, and there are some I’d never read at all — for instance, I don’t even want to tackle the dialects in the Uncle Remus stories as an adult, reading aloud.

Connor specifically asked for The King’s Breakfast one day, though, and that tickled me, because I do remember liking that one — partly because I also saw it on The Muppet Show:

I think, perhaps, that my tendency to read it to Connor in my fake British accent stems from me subconsciously imitating Twiggy as I read it aloud.

throwback thursday Leave a comment

TBT: Ballet Recital, 1983

Connor and I were watching the episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood where Mr. Rogers visits the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Of course, I mentioned to Connor that Mommy used to take ballet class when she was little — and, of course, he wanted to see pictures.

Mom, Memaw, and me before my ballet recital

I took ballet class at Laura Penton’s Academy of Classical Ballet (later renamed the Medina Academy of Classical Ballet, now long since gone) from when I was four years old to when I was eight. Over those four years, I performed in three recitals (we moved to Florida in 1984 just before what would have been my final recital), but I could only find photos of my last recital from 1983, when I was seven — the one with the purple sequined leotard and tutu with the magic wand and matching star tiara.

All the snapshots of my actual dance recitals involve me looking like I’m out of sync with everyone else, in addition to being a head taller than all most of the other girls. My mother insists that this is because all the other girls were taking their cues from me. I think she’s just saying that because she’s my mother.

I'm the tall one on the end.

(Now that I look closer, though, none of us are really in sync, and we all look very serious, like we’re concentrating with all our seven-year-old might. And none of us have particularly good turn-out — of all my memories of ballet class, I recall our teacher harping on us the most about that.)

I also wonder if future generations whose major life moments were captured on early digital cameras or cell phone cameras will experience the same kind of technology regret that I feel when I look at these old pics from my Mom’s 110 Instamatic. There’s something kind of meta there, too, though… some parallel between the fuzzy memory and the fuzzy picture. Try as you might, some details just can’t be recalled exactly as they were.