30 Days Of Truth Challenge | Grow Where You're Planted | Day 2

Day 02 → Would you say your childhood was happy? Why or why not?



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I am curls and laughter, music and clumsy, and I love my little sisters and brother. I love to make you smile ~ please let me help you! Washing dishes with Aunt Tanya, I cut open my finger on a suds-hidden knife; blood is scary, but these tears are from fear of disappointing you, more than from pain. I dance on the coffee table, singing my songs, laughing and mischievous. I am a mermaid princess with long black hair, swimming in my bathtub ocean. See my whale friends? They just look plastic and tiny; really, they are strong and mighty and swim with me all day! Now I am a mommy feeding my Big Doll ~ thank you, Mommy, for making her for me! Jessica's Big Doll has yellow hair, but mine has brown like me, and I think she is the best...

Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July at Grama's house, with all my cousins, every year after year after year. Grama makes potato salad, and I love the mustard and relish best. Heather, Timmy, Jessica and I wear black olive fingernails, or maybe we are aliens? Kim and Kelli sit with us at the kiddy table, but they prefer not to share their toys; little girls mess up Barbie hair and lose their clothes and shoes, you know. Silks and lace and beads from Grama's dress-up box make us pretty princesses and brides, or clowns and scallywags, all! Richy the cowboy has a faux fox tail, and nicks Grampa's boots from by the door; he is too small, and leaves them lonely on the front porch, running barefoot through the soft green grass in the front yard. Heather and I sit on the steps, shivering in big cozy towels fresh from Grama's dryer, wet from the sprinkler still spinning spinning spinning in the sunshine...

Icky green caterpillars crawling on thistles, crawling on my sister's arms, her smiling face ~ eeeewwww!! She laughs and throws them at me, icky green slimy caterpillars that bite, and I run screaming screaming screaming! I get her ~ dark red clay down her shirt, coats her skin, makes her look like the Indian children we see in town; dark damp red clay from the deep cut in the hills above our house, where we drive our Tonkas and Barbies make their Indian cave houses. Dark damp red clay that stains Barbie's long blond hair; I leave her there, in the cut, under stones and damp red clay ~ she fell so far, up up up at the top of the cut, so far, taller than me with Jess on my shoulders and Richy climbing, stepping on our shoulders! I leave her there, under dark red staining clay and stones...

At Grama's house, cutting trees with Daddy, stacking logs and branches, watching trees fall *crash bang boom* Arms scratched, heaving hurrying keeping up with Daddy, itchy wood chips and dust in my pants and tee shirt, carrying stacking moving logs with Daddy and Grampa. Watching Daddy under that tree, scared worried exhilarated guilty, watching Daddy struggle free. Hide behind the tractor, kids, he's in a foul mood! Heaving carrying stacking logs and branches, working hard, breathing hard, sweating itchy sticky wood chips and dust...



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A cute boy down the lane shows me baby birds on the ground, dead, falling from their nests high high high in the hay barn eaves. One baby bird squeaks, and I put him in my pocket, help Mommy and Jess and Richy carry jugs of clean water back to the junk yard house, try not to squish the baby birdy; I am strong, and cary two jugs in each hand ~ and I am only nine! Mommy helps me keep baby birdy warm in a little box, and tells me he eats squishy worms from his mommy's beak; worms taste terrible, but I chew them up and feed them to baby birdy, then he dies and I am sad. Mommy helps me dig a birdy grave in the dirt outside, and I say goodbye; my next birdy will live, and the next, but none of them do. I eat a Robin Red-Breast's breast ~ Jess tricks me! I cry a little, and decide she is mean. Cute boy with the hay barn is not impressed by my selfless chewing of worms for baby birds and laughs at me, stomps my dying baby birds flat. I kick him in his butt and call him a poophead...

I am four today, on a bus in Mexico! A nice man with a black mustache gives me a cupcake, but Mommy throws it away and tells me about strangers. There's a huge huge frog in the neighbor's toilet tank, sitting on the ball, sitting there croaking and looking at me with his huge huge wet eyes! I want to flush him, but the grown ups tell me to go outside. I almost step on a black snake ~ a viper! ~ but Daddy lifts me up and the snake misses my baby toes; Daddy is my hero! The ocean is big, and sand feels funny, but Jessica cries and screams ~ she is afraid of the ocean and its roaring because she is just a baby...

Grampa's arms around me, warm chest against my back, my little mittened hands in his feed the deer, watch the deer lick the big salt-lick, eat oats from the deer trough. Sneaking sneaking, Grampa's not looking, I taste the oats ~ yum! Sneaking sneaking, nobody's looking, I taste the salt-lick ~ yuck! Standing on Grama's blue couch, nose on the window pane, watching Grampa feed the deer, pet the deer on their long fuzzy ears, pet the baby deer covered in red fuzz and white spots...



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Home school field trips, with lots of other kids; I want to meet them all, but Jess is shy, and Richy is angry ~ they play Red Rover Red Rover, and Richy is angry, he is crying, he hides in the bushes, hits me and yells go away! Jess is It, and I we all hide, and she cries because she is just a little kid and she can't find us; I pretend-cough and she finds me and she punches me in the arm ~ "You're It!!" We go to Grant-Cours Ranch in Deerlodge ~ it's a museum, and I want to see inside the big big house and all the farm buildings; we play on the big farm wagon by the parking lot ~ Shane, Cheri and me. Daddy finds me ~ I am in trouble, I am not supposed to play with boys, I belong to Daddy. Everyone stays in tents outside the Schubert's house in Anaconda; Mommy and Daddy and the babies in the big tent, Jess and Richy and me in the pup tent, Cheri and other girls in the other pup tent and BJ and Shane sleep outside our pup tents in sleeping bags. No one is really sleeping ~ giggle giggle talk talk ~ but Daddy is angry and I am silent, I do not want to be in trouble for talking to boys, they are my friends! Embarrassed and scared, I snuggle Jessica who is asleep, and try not to kick Richy who is asleep by my feet at the bottom of the tent...

We build together, almost every day; Playmobile, Lincoln Logs, wooden building blocks. We build other worlds, escaping into make-believe, loving our lives through plastic and wood and metal toys. Reinventing ourselves ~ princess, cat, horsey, dog, soldier, Indian, explored, mermaid, bandit, knight, missionary; anything goes. Daddy plays with us sometimes, down on the floor like a great big kid, building castles and forts and laughing as red-headed Gila monster Rosie crashes through the cities of our imaginations, roaring giggling laughing! We love Daddy in those moments, piling on, a dog-pile of flailing limbs and flying hair, screaming laughing tickling abandon...

Sometimes I am afraid. Wish I knew Alice ~ she went down the rabbit hole, she could take me back with her, down the rabbit hole, down down down the rabbit hole. Misty likes to dress me up in big girl clothes, big girl clothes and make-up and hair, hairspray thick makes me choke and cough; her daddy likes it when Misty dresses me up in big girl clothes ~ I am afraid of her daddy, my Daddy's friend Kevin. Dark dark dark...run away, watch those kids on tv, stupid kids in school, stupid stupid...I didn't run away, Daddy, I swear! Confusing, conflicting, frightening ~ it didn't happen, what didn't happen, it didn't happen, singing laughing playing...



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I love summer, especially at Grama's house; bright sun, warm breeze, cold sprinkler, and most of all swinging. The swing tree, so big and strong, Richy climbed it once, high high high, even Uncle Robert couldn't reach him! Big boy smiles, striped shirt, dirty jeans, fuzzy crew cut hair. I love those swings ~ two rubber straps hung with ropes, one low one high, swing swing swing. Jessica winds the bench swing, chains wrapping tightly pinch little fingers ~ be careful! ~ twist tighter, let go, spin spin spin! Blue eyes sparkle, darky blond tresses flying behind her, spinning spinning spinning, around and around...

Dark days come, dark days go, Jess and Richy and Rosie and baby Hannah remain. I love being a big sister! Playing house, playing mommy and daddy and baby; I forget the hard days, to remember the happy ones...

To live.

To see the full Challenge list, click here.

To see Day 1, click here.