Almost Forgotten

Worn wooden table. Chairs scraping against the floor, children's chattering, laughter. Hot chocolate in old mugs, cupped by little hands.

We made the hot chocolate with microwaved milk, instead of using boiled water like I did at home.
It was never quite as hot, but always warmer on my insides as we sat there, cheeks pink from the snow outside and all of us thinking hard what to do next.

Tents, or houses, made from blankets. Some of them were so heavy, we had to use our schoolbooks to pin them to the couches. There was barely enough room underneath for even our smaller bodies to crawl, especially after we padded the carpet with cushions. It was okay because we were being Cats, and cats don't stand up inside anyway.

Sometimes we made hot chocolate with only half the powdered packet, and ate the other half, which I never did at home. It stuck to my teeth in little gooey lumps, and I thought that was funny.

When we got tired of talking, we lay down and tried to read in the dimness of those quilted shadows. Eventually we took the books and migrated back upstairs to where the winter sunlight poured in through the window.

Sometimes we didn't make hot chocolate at all. If we had played long enough, if the house was warm enough that we didn't care about the cold, we had cups of apple juice instead.

We asked to sleep under those blanket-houses, so we could keep playing even in our dreams, but ended up in proper beds anyway.

Still it was the roads that

caught our attention and

my recollection: there, 

reality blurred, and we found 

a doorway into our own world.

On the roads, we were

adventurers, explorers,

or warriors as we wished--

what exciting journeys

to remember! and how

simple to forget the quiet

comfort of the house that

waited, waited patiently

until the weary travelers

returned.

oh, journals

I found this in my notes today. It's something I wrote back towards the end of June, a brief descriptive journal of the summer thus far. I made myself laugh a little.

--

The wind outside is blowing enough to toss the tree branches from side to side, and it looks like they're playing with each other. The sun is brilliantly gold on every bit of green and not too hot today. All the same, I shall probably soon be called to water the flowers outside that my mother has been planting in recent weeks. There are daisies, lilies, and many others of various shapes and colors whose names I do not know. They are beautiful as long as the sun does not shrivel them and the deer and beetles do not eat them up. Both situations are in constant danger of happening, which makes my mother upset.
If it happens that all the flowers should die, we shall at least have the tomato plants still living, as long as the rabbits and groundhogs do not dig under the fence and eat them, and as long as the ants do not go around building anthills nearby and getting ideas. The ants really have quite the audacity. A few months ago we found an anthill actually inside the house, which was appropriately horrifying to everyone. Thankfully, there are also lots of spiders in the house, so the ants are mostly dead now. I like spiders as long as they are not crawling on me, biting me, or sitting in forbidden places like my clothes drawers.
That is basically the sum of my current summer existence--sunlight, flowers, and insects.
No, I am probably lying. There are other things happening as well, but they don't matter so much to me right now.

--

I particularly like the line about spiders. It's true.