Ten Day Meme: Day 7

[teddy_radiator]

Day 1 - Ten random facts about yourself
Day 2 - Nine things you do everyday
Day 3 - Eight things that annoy you
Day 4 - Seven fears/phobias
Day 5 - Six songs that you’re addicted to
Day 6 - Five things you can’t live without
Day 7 - Four memories you won’t forget
Day 8 - Three words you can’t go a day without
Day 9 - Two things you wish you could do
Day 10 - One person you can trust

1. The First Night TheHubs™ came to the States. He and I had been corresponding online for over six months, and he had become my lifeline. We met in a Yahoo Chat Room. I was Guinevere_Had_Greeneyes, he was Sir_Lance_DeBoyle. We had that Auturian thing going on, and for the first week, we spoke to one another in character. Finally, we got up enough nerve to be ourselves, and found we liked it. That was February 1999. At the end of June, he flew here from the UK, and I planned on following him back a month later. People thought we were mad, but we had talked for literally hours every day (my poor aching phone bills), and knew one another inside and out. The night he was to arrive, I was a complete, jibbering wreck. I spent hours primping, changing my clothes, doing my hair and makeup, making sure the house was immaculate. I was so nervous driving to the airport, so I arrived there an hour earlier than his flight was scheduled to arrive so I could calm myself down.

I had been there five minutes when his plane pulled up to the gate - they had arrived over an hour early. I can still feel the absolute joy and terror of setting eyes on him for the first time - joy because I was seeing the man I had fallen head over heels with, terror that he would see me and I would see his face shut down in disappointment. He looked as relieved as I felt. We embraced, and headed for home. I was so rattled that I missed the exit to my house and we had to go the long way home. When we got there, it was pretty special. It sometimes floors me that this took place almost sixteen years ago. I can still feel the absolute panic of seeing that plane swanning up to the gate an hour early.

2. I've written about this before, so I apologise to those who have endured this before: I love the occasional snowstorm, because it takes me back to the most Perfect Day that my world ever experienced.

My parents had moved into their little house the summer of 1966, and in early 1967 we had a doozy of a snow day. There was no question of going to school; the roads were solid ice and impassable. My Mom and Dad stayed home from work, and everyone in my neighborhood, instead of staying indoors watching television or playing games, got out to play in the snow.

It started off with my cousin Jimmy and a few of his friends making a giant snowman, then deciding it would be a good idea to tie a sheet of plywood to the bumper of their truck and carry passengers on it. This was quickly dismissed as too dangerous – then someone noticed our driveway.

As I said, it was a new house which sat in a slight dip in the earth, with a driveway that made a horseshoe circuit around the house from one side to the other. The earth had not settled yet – it was steep and long, and with no cars on it, was as slick as any downhill ski slope.

Thus began a day that has lived on in the memory of everyone who was there – a full day of sliding, laughter, wild joy and the thrill of a fast track that, if you got a good start at the top, would take you all the way down to the line of my parent’s property, which fell away to railroad tracks some fifteen feet below.

All ages were there; my parents, my Aunt Betty and Uncle Bill, my teenage cousins Jimmy and Vicki and their friends, the Durham boys, who were my age, and others whose names I have forgotten or never knew.

The driveway became the focus of the entire neighborhood, and everyone ran, slid, belly-flopped and dove down it over and over. It was like having your own fun park. For the first time in our lives, we kids didn’t have to ask our parents to play with us – they were asking us to play with them. Excited by the silliness of the adults frolicking around us, we were in a kind of kid heaven that parents so often forget about creating when they grow up.

We had started early, and our house became a sort of ski lodge that people rushed in and out, getting feeling back into frozen feet and changing clothes or looking for things to slide on. Mother, caught up in the fun as much as anyone, ran around the house looking for anything that could be used as a sled; cookie sheets, flat pans, TV trays, shovel blades, a large dustpan my Dad had made her at work from a massive sheet of metal - even plastic buckets – they were all sacrificed for the cause.

I remember riding down the hill with my Dad, terrified and excited at the speed, feeling totally safe but incredibly scared we were going to fall off the cliff onto the railroad tracks. Everyone was seized by the joy of the day, and it was magic; a day that seemed to last forever.

People would rush in to our house sopping wet and grab one of my dad’s shirts to put on, then dash back out into the fun. The pile of sodden clothes grew higher and higher in the bathroom as the day went on.

My Dad, who had a gift for capturing great moments, got out his Super8 camera and used up a reel of film, and it’s all there: Vicki sliding across the ice into the arms of her then-boyfriend, knocking them both over. Me, left with only a plastic bucket to slide on, which had too much friction and left me scooching down the hill like a demented inchworm. The breakneck speed in which the Durham boys flew down the hill – utterly fearless and full of the fierce joy that boys will have when they know they’re invinsible.

The snow fell all through the day, and it was beautiful and blameless; everyone was safe, everyone was having a ball.

The day ended late, after dark, long after Mom insisted that I finally come in and have something to eat. All day she’d dolled out hot chocolate and tomato soup, and although I was exhausted, I was furious to have to leave the fun. I could hear the wild screams and laughter of the grownups, and I longed to be a part of it – I wished the day would never end.

Slowly, everyone drifted back to their homes in the waning light, tired and hungry and happy. It was as if we would wake up the next day and start over again, but, of course, we didn’t. You can’t recreate perfection; it’s painful to try, so we didn’t.

I have since spoken to several people who were there that day and they all say the same thing – that it was a perfect day; when weather, comrades, opportunity and serendipity melded into a never-to-be-forgotten moment. We all share the same memories of this day in some mystical collective thought.

Each person remembers this perfect day vividly and with the same fondness, even longing. Even Mom recalls her wrecked household goods and the nearly head-height pile of wet clothes with a sort of wistful yearning.

To tell the truth, I’ve had great days in my life, and I can’t exactly tell you what made this one perfect, only that it was. I relive that day often in my heart, more than any other day of my life – especially on a quiet, snowing afternoon.

3. The day we decided to shut the Tea Room. We'd been struggling for three months, and I remember that TheHubs™ had walked down the block to pay our phone bill. When he returned, it was almost Noon, and we had no customers. He looked at me with such regret in his eyes and said, "I passed three restaurants on the way back. They were all packed." I looked around the lovely little shop we had worked so hard to make into something special and lovely, at all the empty tables, and I realised I just didn't have the heart to keep it going. When I said so, he said the same thing. We both cried a little, because making the decision to close was the hard part. Once we'd made that decision, I felt as if a huge, heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders. The dismantling of the place was sad, seeing the fixtures taken down and the signage removed from the windows, but not nearly as hard as making that final decision to close.

4.  The night that TheHubs™ finished the first draft of Her Minder. When I first said I would write a novel, he scoffed, he jeered, he goaded me into admitting I wrote erotica to our church-going customers to embarrass me. I'm not sure what caused this behaviour in him; he's always been supportive, but this somehow bothered him. While I was writing it, he refused to read it - until it was done. I had Lulu print a revision copy, and he agreed to read it. For two days he read; he said nothing to me, he gave me no feedback. That last evening, he closed the book, and turned and looked at me with an expression that completely baffled me. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. He stood up and put his arms around me, and said, "You are a writer." He loved it. It changed our married life completely. It changed the way he looked at me forever. He is my biggest fan and my greatest supporter, and tells everyone he meets that I am writer, and that they're all gonna know my name one day. Whatever I put my hand to, he is convinced I can do it brilliantly. Writing made me a hero in his eyes. If Her Minder doesn't make another penny, I will always be grateful to it for that reason alone.

Comments

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful collection of memories!

[arwitchywoman.livejournal.com]

Teddy, I enjoyed reading your memories. Before I made it to #4 I already thought you should write a novel based around #2. I got all caught up in that memory. I think it would make a great story.

[mimimanderly.livejournal.com]

Oh, Teddy! You certainly are a writer! Unlike most meme responses, that may be interesting, but don't really "suck me in", I found myself visualizing these experiences to the point where it felt like I was actually experiencing them firsthand. I loved all of them, and found myself wanting to read more! All of them made me tear up, they were just so touching.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, dear heart. I hope you are well - I miss seeing you around. I hope it means that you are having too much fun in the 3-d world! ♥

[torino10154]

Wonderful assortment of memories.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ♥

[delphipsmith]

Every one of your memories brought tears to my eyes, especially the last one. In each one you evoke such a vivid sense of time and place, but most especially of emotion -- trepidation and anticipation, joy and sorrow. You have a true gift :)

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ♥

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Such amazing memories, Teddy. Thank you for sharing them with us.

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

So sorry about #3. 1 and 2 are just lovely. I know that feeling of being so nervous about your first face-to-face meeting with a previously on-line romantic interest. I seriously didn't eat for at least two days before my meeting with my partner. On the afternoon of the day we were to meet, I finally forced myself to have a milkshake with protein power (fat, protein, calcium -- I figured I needed it after two days of jittery involuntary fasting), but I could manage to drink only about half of it. But it was the sort of nervousness that is full of delicious excitement, too.