First Memory...

Most, if not all, of my memories from childhood strike me, not as a logical series of events, nor are they informative as to the kind of life I was living. They come to me as impressions, images. Most of you probably don't know yet that I am an art major. Knowing that, it's no surprise that I tend to think in visual terms. I can easily remember images, stories, songs, yet struggle to recall exact names, dates, or hard facts.

So, my childhood does not proceed in my mind as a running history. People or places often fade away. But how vivid are the images I am left! How spectacular to remember only the moments that moved me, only the visions that lived in my eyes. These are sometimes simple things, seemingly mundane moments that to any passerby may appear ordinary. Perhaps they were to me at the time, yet something of value existed, otherwise why archive certain memories over others? Undoubtedly, the value is there. We have only to find it.

My first recollection, the first image that can reasonably be called a memory is this:

I am sitting on a wooden table near a sliding glass door. Light is flooding in through the massive glass pane and sometimes catches in my eyes. I look away.

I remember touching my hand to the finish on the tabletop, perhaps to feel the waxy varnish, perhaps to keep myself from falling. I remember tracing the grain with one or two clumsy fingers as the light swam in the now golden valleys. I remember my mother and her hands in my hair, a flurry of activity. Perhaps I would squirm or pull away, and I remember words. The most vivid moment was my awareness of a pair of silver metal scissors on the tabletop. The light exploded off the surface, blinding and captivating. I reached out to touch them. I remember being told not to, but refusing to listen. As if powerless to do otherwise, I put my hand, again, on the blades, as if I could somehow touch the light itself. And then they were gone.

I remember the absence.

Years later as I was going through a very old photo album, I found a picture of myself sitting on a table, my mother cutting what little hair I had, my first haircut; I was still very small, no more than a few years old. Yet... this image struck me so profoundly that it has never left.