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Vivid Memory
My most vivid childhood memory is a red blouse with buttons all down the back and on the sleeves. I remember my little sausage of a finger poking them wondering if buttons and polka dots were different things. I remember a spoon in my mouth with God knows what on it and as soon as I’d socked it dry I attempted to fashion a weapon out of it combined with a stray hair tie. This was the days of MP3 players and teddies when kids didn’t roam the sidewalk with headphones surgically attached and chargers like veins. It must have been the early nineties with whoever was supposed to be taken care of me at the time.
My most recent memory is a wet spot from where I tried to get the swipe of eyeliner off my pillow and failed.
I explained all this on my first visit to the therapist. My new foster parents wanted me to go and I wanted to stay in a place where no one mistreated or abused me yet, so I parked myself on the couch and started talking. He asked if I read many plays, but I barely managed chapter books, so I said no. He took this all in stride and completely redirected, handing me a sketch pad instead and asked me to draw what was in my brain every day. It needed to look menacing and wound up resembling a rubber duck, but he was more pleased with it. So thrilled, in fact, that he bestowed a piece of apple upon me as a reward for this feat.
