Cicadas and Memories by V-Ann Davis (red novels .txt) 📕

Sometimes you have a memory-just there , right in the corner of your mind, and it is just niggling to get out. You reach for it and it seems to flitter off, as though it had wings and did not want to be caught and brought back to the light. Reach again and again and it seems to finally disappear, no matter how much you look, it is gone now. Go on with your life it seems to say, go on and I shall come again to visit you - just don't expect me to stay long.

As I stood outside in the slowly darkening sky I hear cicadas, it is summer and they start their songs now. I feel a stepping back in time, a memory reaching out to me.... Is it the summer air that brings back the memories, maybe the heat is what I am remembering, or perhaps it is the cicadas that make me go backwards in my mind. And as much as I may try I just can't place what the memory is.

I start digging in my mind of memories I CAN grab hold to....fishing trips with my dad that always started with a trip to the store to buy bologna and cheese that needed sliced before they were bought. And of course there is always the memory of riding on the tailgate of the car so I could jump off and go get the cans that we found along the back roads. Days spent on a blanket under the shade tree because it was just to hot to do anything else but lie there. Nights not sleeping but staring at the skies , counting the stars, wishing for even the slightest breeze to still the heat.....

But they ALL have cicadas in them, they all have the sounds I hear now as I watch the sky getting darker and darker around me. So I must dig deeper to find my hiding memory, that one that just doesn't want to be caught- like those fish so long ago.

Have you ever just wanted to go back in time and have a serious chat with the little you of years past? Just have an old fashioned "sit down" ? I am wondering if it would have done any good, would the Little me have listened to the Big me any better than the Little me listened to any one else that tried to talk back then. Would the Little me just know that I WAS someone who knew , who could spare me some pain and sorrow.

There are so many times , especially as I grow older, that I look back on my many mistakes I have made in my 47 years. How many of them would I be willing to change, knowing my life would be different now? As the butterfly effect goes, every decision leads you down a different road, a different turn or hill. Do I want a different life than I have right NOW,or do I just wish I had not made the mistake as I look back on it now.

I think the Little me would be willing to feel the pain I felt as I made each mistake- just to be where I am now.

I sit on my bed, windows open and can hear the rain falling as my wonderful husband of thirty-two years sleeps beside me. I know just a door down from where I sit is a room with two sleeping girls snuggled together after hearing me read to them . Just down the hall into the kitchen is a common sight of two teenage boys, laptops glowing in the dim lights, each lost in their own worlds of Pokemon and Neopets. I am missing my 18 year old this night as she is off a few states away , but thankfully she will be home tomorrow night- safe back in the folds of her mother once more. Just one street over is a married daughter, my oldest child - her family of two girls and her husband sleeping safely. Then just one more street over and I have my oldest son- his wife and three girls no doubt asleep and dreaming happy thoughts as well.

Would I be willing to change all this, just to keep away some of the pain I have lived to get here, or would I be okay with knowing it is so worth it in the end. Would Little me make different decisions that would make this life no more.

Maybe I don't really want to have that sit down chat after all.

I

t is really amazing to me how each of us have a day that is so special to us, but means nothing to the rest of the world. It just passes them by and they never know that is is OUR day, a day we add a new page to our book of life, a new year to our lives. We have our memories from that day that no one else has, that no one else can feel as we do.

Today is one of those days. It is not MY birthday, but my son-in-law Jonathan's instead. It seems as though he has been a part of my life a lot longer than the 10 years he has really been. He fits in so well with us, he is just another one of the group now, and I can't imagine life without him. He is turning 31 in 3 days, but that will be on a Tuesday and today is Saturday, THE time to have a party. So today, we celebrate HIS day, his time to add a new year, a time to make new memories that are solely his.

I look back on my life, with 47 years under my belt now, and think of being his age again. At 31 I was expecting baby #4. I had so many wants at that time- I wanted to hurry and get past the puke time in this pregnancy, I wanted just one day to spend sleeping, I wanted to just get older and get on with it. My kids were 15, 12 and 3- yes there is a bit of a space there :) And I was adding a new page, a new year, and lots of new memories.

It never fails to amaze me the importance we put on our days, we remember the exact day, even see the days in the time on a clock. Yet everyone else around us has no idea why that day, or that time means so much to us. It is so fun to find "twins" for our birthdays, then it is even cooler if it is the EXACT day as ours.

I have so few birthdays that I have memories of , I guess that is why I treasure the ones I do have. There is so MUCH in my life I don't remember- I guess there was too much pain in my life when I was younger. In fact I don't remember too much of my life before I met Ricky. And THAT day I have etched in my mind for ever.

But that is a whole other chapter.

S

eems like every year starting the end of May the cry of "my kids are driving me crazy" seems to be heard all over town. The kids are home from school for 3 months and so many parents have no idea how to keep them occupied and keep their sanity at the same time.

See I have never had that problem in my entire parenting life...I am a homeschooling mommy.

My kids have been by my side for every day of their lives, minus an overnight trip to grandmas or a sleep over with friends. I never get them ready for school and then hurry them out the door to be apart from me for hours everyday. I wake with them in the morning and eat lunch with them each afternoon. I have them under my feet as I sweep the house, and love tripping over them. I hang laundry with them describing the new things they learned in their Science book and wash dishes to their Math questions, and I have more than once given a Spelling test while I made the beds in the morning.

Every day I hear them waking up, I hear their complaints over "nothing to do" , I hear their fears, their dreams, their questions. I have time to BE with them, and as I age and can no longer do for them I am assured they will be there for ME. I have forged bonds with my children that I hope to continue to strengthen as they age and mature and move out to start their own families. I almost never tire of being with them all day, I almost never feel the urge to hurry summer so I can send them away for hours at a time. I usually enjoy my time with them.

But what about those times that I just need some "me" time? What do I do then??

I