Recently, I have been returning to a memory of me as a little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old, sitting in my childhood backyard on a rickety old bench, with light-bleached wood which was chipping terribly, producing clusters of splinters at either end. My legs, not quite yet reaching the ground, swung like little branches in the wind, mindlessly and gently bobbing back and forth to an almost imperceptible rhythm. Around me, birds sung and rustled in the tree leaves, and on the ground amongst the bushes directly behind me. An even larger group chatted and swooned in the enormous tree, several metres ahead of me, past our tall blue corrugated iron fence, across the road, on the nature strip along the sidewalk.
In my left ear, I focussed on the buzzing sound of the bees who took feast on the lavender bush beside me. I took a mighty inhale, experimentally, wondering if I could smell the lavender. I could. I smiled, impressed with myself, without really knowing or investigating why.
In my right ear, I could hear the whooshing by of cars and the more violent grumble of heavier vehicles as they travelled the busy main road just outside the eastern-most side of the yard. In the same ear, distant conversations could be heard, and a delighted scream followed by laughter and loud, enthusiastic greetings between two women suddenly pierced the whole scene.
It was late afternoon- maybe 5 or 6 in the evening, and I still wore my blue and white checkered school dress. The day was warm, but the lowering of the sun behind the neighbours house to my left hand-side cast a great cool shadow across the yard. I was perfectly comfortable. I could hear faint sounds of staticky music from inside the house, maybe the radio, and I was comforted by the thought of my mum, just out of view, probably making us something for dinner.
I closed my eyes to focus on a feeling brewing from a deep place somewhere between my heart and my stomach. It felt tender like pain, but hopeful, like joy. Images of all kinds swirled around in my mind, and combinations of words paired themselves together like musical notes, around and around in my mind, like a carousel. I continued to probe this mass in the middle of me, with my mind, and I tried to decide whether it felt good or bad. I couldn’t decide.
I let my eyes stay closed for a moment before I opened them, I jumped off of the bench- while carefully avoiding splinters- and walked routinely in through the backdoor, past the laundry into the living area, and the memory bleeds out.
I have returned to this memory many times in my life, without really ever knowing why, except that it is a memory where I was comfortable, where I was inexplicably happy. Evermore, I recall this memory. And what becomes more clear as time passes is what that feeling inside of me, which I became aware of that day, actually is.
I realise now that the sensation that I was becoming aware of was my passion. Deep, burning passion that has always blazed within me. A bright red passion for life, electric and charged, buried within the fleshy mass of my body. Big. Loud. Painstaking. Passion. It is not only a feeling, but a large part of who I am, I am starting to realise.
As I recall that memory now, of me sitting on a bench in my childhood backyard, I see a young girl who was starting to discover how she felt inside. Who was confused by what she came across, and all the more intrigued. I am her, and she is me. A lot of the time, my spirit is still sitting on that bench in my childhood backyard, smelling lavender and trying to decide if being me feels good or bad. At least I know now it’s a question that can’t simply be answered.
