metanoia's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- of turquoise houses and guinea pigs I write best in the morning, for some reason. It's nine at night, by the way. Fair warning. Life is full of firsts and we remember many of them if they are, well, memorable. Eastern religions are big on each moment being a first and last with eternity delicately balanced in the present moment. This is not about that kind of first. My brother lived in a turquoise house. It was square and turquoise blue with pale yellow trim around the windows. Before he bought it, I had never seen a turquoise house, nor had I even thought about whether one existed in this world. I thought it was weird (it creeped me out) and I always felt a little uneasy in that place. I must have been about 9 years old when he bought it. It sat on a large corner lot with a white picket fence around it. His children had guinea pigs. I had never seen them before, either. I thought they were weird too, as I stuck my finger in the cage and one of them bit it. I guess it was a stupid thing to do, I know, but ... let's just say I was a curious child. Take that any way you like. And the funny thing is that everybody (my family) made such a big deal of my finger getting bitten but not because I hurt, but because "How could you do something so stupid? Everybody knows you don't stick your finger in a guinea pig cage..." and blah blah blah along those lines. My family were a bunch of shits for the most part. Oh, they loved me and I them, but for the most part they never encouraged or supported me in my dreams. If I shared my hopes and dreams the first words out of their mouths were, "Why do you want to do that for?" It sounds like I lived a sheltered life, not having seen a turquoise house or a guinea pig in all of my 9 years, and I guess I was sheltered in many ways. In other ways, not so much. I was not sheltered from the endless arguments and physical violence that defined my parents marriage. All the absurdities that go along with alcholism. But I hadn't seen a turquoise house. Or a guinea pig. I have no idea why I thought this significant enough to write about, but I guess it is because it was a "first"...one of those things you just don't forget - your first love, your first car, or your first sight of a turquoise house and a guinea pig. 9:04 p.m. - 2008-07-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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