Memories From Before I Was ThreeSometimes images just break over my conscious.
I think I remember differently than most people... or at least I seem to remember more from a very early age. Most of them are single impressions- an image, a color, a texture/tactile sense, or smell. A few sensations. Generally, they are static, but very, very vivid.
They start at about a year old.
I wrote some down, quickly, the other day while thinking about using them for some sort of painting series. I'm not sure I'll ever get the chance, but here they are (and for some reason, they came out vaguely resembling poetry- not intentional):
Note: My first three and a half years were spent in Bolivia.
He told us that every time a stranger walked by,
A soccer game would appear
On the adobe wall of his house
For two days, I sat on the wooden gate waiting for someone
to pass
But by the time I could run to his house
It was always too late
The spots were all over her face, but still we played
beneath the water tower
When they spread over my own body, I watched their progress
with interest
Chicken pox, they said
She told me that the women needed to know how to wash their
children
I was so ashamed sitting naked in the red bathtub in front of
all of those eyes
The room was yellow
I’ve never liked that color since ^^This was at about eighteen months old*
I remember the feeling of his strong hands
The roughness of the beige seat against my legs
And the rush of wind in my face
As I rode behind my father’s sweating back
On his bicycle
She swore that if I didn’t stop it right then,
She was going to pull down my pants and spank me in front of
everyone-
All of those girls in their little dresses-
She never had to do it,
Not once
The tricycle tire broke, so my father fashioned one from
wood
It was too uneven for my small legs to pedal
No matter how hard I pushed
The room was dark as we crouched over the footlocker,
Frantically pulling out all of the toys
My father always made us close the curtains
So the other children wouldn’t see our wealth
My mother liked to place me on the back of the smaller goats
Balancing me with her slender arm
I loved the feel of their bristly hair against my legs
While fearing their horns
She loved to lift me high in the air
The fat from her underarms jiggling
And blow raspberries onto my bare stomach
I screamed and screamed in my frustration
And still can’t stand the sound of smacking lips
I walked into the water far over my head
It was a while before anyone noticed
Long enough for me to remember my last sight of land
The muddiness of the water underneath
And how I couldn’t get to the spinning light above
No matter how hard I thrashed
My father once caused a town riot
By canceling a soccer game in the middle of play
We hid in the locked house
While men ran by with guns
He was going hunting, he said
I remember the scent of oil from the long rifle
His long absence
And how I never wanted to eat the animals hanging from the
porch
At night, we’d walk down to the plaza
My mother holding tightly to my hand
I craned my neck to stare at the electric street lamps
And thought there was nothing so beautiful in all the world
She lit kerosene lamps against the darkness
The smell meaning comfort
And home
We ate with the sound of waves in the background
The cold air kept out with blankets wrapped around our
shivering bodies
I laughed for hours that we ate chili when it was chilly
Many pairs of adult legs folded beneath the long table
I made a game of guessing which belonged to whom
Trying all along not to touch them to find out
My brother would eat whole sticks of butter
Always trying to convince me to bite into them
While I preferred my green beans covered with Nesquik
And quickly washed down with milk
Our pet monkey
Let loose his bowels all over the inside of our jeep
In his excitement at seeing so many trees
It was days before the smell faded
The goat stood calmly
Just before they slit its throat for the feast
My mother slapped her hands over my eyes
But I’d already seen the stain of blood against its fur
I thought I’d never seen anything so tall as our horse
When I stood at its hooves, looking up at my mother
High on its back
The Indian woman
Gave us sugar cane to suck
As we stood on the side of the long hill,
The jungle burning beneath us to make farms
My teeth ached against the sweetness
It seemed like hours before our parents found us
I cradled the baby bat in my hands
Feeling its softness, smallness, against my fingers
While I stared up at the church rafters
From where it had fallen
They could always run faster,
Walk steadier,
Jump higher walls
How I envied my brothers
I walked around the kitchen
Wobbling and needing the wall to hold me up
The fridge was harder to get around
But I could keep going
So long as I wasn’t confronted with the impossibility of
open space ^^Learning to walk, maybe? I remember how terrifying doorways were.*
How my brother cried
When the frog peed in his eye
Yet he still carried them,
Nearly daily,
In his crowded pockets
I never made it all of the way across the yard,
Calling out for my sister
Instead, I fell asleep
Somewhere in the middle of that hard beaten ground
Late at night,
We’d take blankets and lie out on the airstrip
My father pointing out constellations with his flashlight
As I fell fast asleep, curled against his warm side 
They still tell me that it's impossible that I could remember these things, but there's so much more... being afraid of my mother and the grasp of her too-firm hand... the belt buckle and creased knees of a man I counted as my friend... I've since proven at least a few of these memories by telling them the color of the walls or the layout of a particular room.
I wonder what my son will remember.
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