Wishing

Last night as I tossed and turned I found myself once again wishing I could still sleep on my stomach. For years this is the way I lay down to go to sleep. But a combination of an old bed and my old back forces me to lay on my side. (For some weird reason, I cannot fall asleep on my back.) Anyway, as I tossed and turned I started thinking of other things I missed from the past.

• my kids when they were toddlers. Despite the day to day frustrations of raising two at one time, I sometimes really miss them sitting in my lap, smelling their hair as they nestled in my arms. the way all of their problems could be solved with a hug and a kiss.
• first kisses. We've been married 22 years so I have to reach WAY back, but I still remember the feeling I would get when kissing a girl for the first time. I can't describe it other than it was like a high current flowing through me looking for a ground. The nervousness, anticipation, not knowing if it would be returned or spurned. And the giddiness of knowing there would be a second kiss.
• my great-grandmother. Her house was right beside my grandfather's (of Hilton Grocery fame). Mama Smith always had time for us young-uns. There was always a cake or pie in the safe. She made the best biscuits - she kept a wooden bowl with flour in it, she would scoop a hollow and add buttermilk and oil and stir in flour with her hand until a dough was formed. She'd pinch off bits of dough and put them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven. no recipe, no measuring - I can't remember her ever having a cookbook out. I would sit on her back porch in a rocker helping her shell peas or butter beans, gather the eggs from the hen house, or get her a jar of pickles from the smoke house. She had fluffy white hair, wore simple dresses, her support hose rolled just below her knees, the blue veins in her strong hands stood out (missing the end of one of her fingers). And a cackle for a laugh - which she did often.
• my grandfather's barn. That barn was in turn a fort, a playhouse, a sanctuary. It had a hay loft and a tin roof. There was a lean-to on one side that sheltered his tractor and a bench full of old rusting tools and plow blades. He kept hogs in a pen around part of the barn and a trailer of corn to feed them. I loved to climb in the hayloft when it was raining for the sound of it on the tin roof. There was a corn crib which sometimes had corn, and always had spiders.
• Monterey California. I spent a year there learning arabic. I and a buddy would catch a bus Saturday mornings and ride over the hill to Carmel to go to the beach. We would stop at a shop, pick up some beer, bread & butter & cheese and stay the day catching the last bus back that evening. I met and married Laura while there. Our first apartment was one room with a divider that could be drawn across to close off the bed from the rest of the room. There was a little grocery store that made the BEST sandwiches, Laura and I would split one and bake a potato to go with it. There was a little bakery called Fifi's and the Dream Theater that down front instead of seats were pads on the floor with seat backs wide enough for two, you could stretch your legs out, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. I saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show there for the first time with Laura. I guess she and I had a lot of firsts in Monterey.
• my van. I have owned two VW vans (buses to be correct) - a '69 and a '71. I taught Laura to drive a stick shift in one. I rebuilt the engine of the other in our living room. ( I almost didn't get it out of the house, it wouldn't fit through the front door once reassembled.) Our first vehicle was the '69 and we drove it from Texas to Missouri, then to Georgia, then to New Jersey to send it to Crete. On my days off there we would often ride up into the hills and when we got hungry we would pull over, open the side door and have our picnic in the back of the van with the view of the valley in front of us. If the babies wouldn't sleep we could put them in the back of the van and ride them around - they'd be asleep in 10 minutes. I still can hear the unique sound of it's engine.

As you can see, I was awake for quite a while last night. I'm off to get another cup of coffee. Cheers.