by ficklechick and bibliophiliac-x (old and new tumblr <3's)
What brings you back to the place you grew up?
sweet gum balls and the deepdeep grooved bark of thier trees and the chalky grey powder dust under the needles that drop to the ground below stands of giant pine trees
What outside sports or games did you play with your friends that stayed with you til this day?
my favorite outside game was to adventure to "The Creek"; there was a crick that ran through thick woods and brush way at the way way back edge of our huge old neighborhood; we would go as a gang of seven or eight of us ranging from 5 to 10 years old or so and we would follow the creek through the woods, pretending to be explorers in unknown territory, or pretending to be on the run from bad guys; the terrain was tricky and different depending on the rain/weather; sometimes someone would fall in, or get ridiculously muddy, or ruin their shoe, or get cut on a piece of glass... we all took turns being leader, helping each other, acting like a wild pack of animals; a few times we got in fights and divided up on opposite sides; we had a few epic mud fights; collected rocks and junk --- it seemed like someone always got in trouble after going "down to the creek" so it was also this really cool thing to do and fraught with risk and potential tragedy -- but nothing really bad or hurtful or dangerous ever did happen. so.
What smells ?
oh gosh. my grandmother's cooking. breaded cube steak fried in the skillet. it makes me feel lonely... like I'm just waking up in the strange spare bedroom back of her house and she is cooking mediocre farm hand food for me while my parents are off traveling somewhere glamorous having abandoned me. the smell still provokes a very distinct feeling, emotional, in me -- I have since identified it as the distinct hybrid combination mood of lonely-hungry-anxious-indignance :)
What senses ?
again, that one is a hybrid. the way the wood framed old fashioned front door with its thick screen, tethered with a long fat spring, would slam bang shut behind us when my dad and I walked into the combination liquor-store, bait-shop, cigar emporium on main street broadway.
the way the brown skin on the back of dad's hand looked, with its hairy knuckles and smoke rising from the marlboro between his fingers - the taste of the yellow bubblegum cigar he would always buy me, how I would worry when the ash on his cigarette got so long I knew it would drop on the floor; how much he hated me interrupting him with pleas to tut his ashes in the ashtray.... those huge ceramic psychedelic ashtrays all glazed and painted brick red and orange gold
i will tag sweet-peasoup and erikadprice and grouchomac and chucklingpecan and alexwowk and handaxe if any of them wants to play and if anyone else does too! join in. :]