Ode to Sweetpea: Memories thread V 2.7

I used to love signing on to the computer every day just to read the updates on the original memories thread in words, started by our lovely and talented Miss Pea. What in the world is stopping us from having another one!!
Anything... something last week that stuck with you, your 5th birthday party... I'll leave it to all of you now.

Dags-Hooray for bringing this thread back!!!
-Picking Tomatoes-
Ever since I was young I loved reading and watching movies about the country. I had images in my head of how it was, slow, sweet and real. I pictured sundresses and hats, gardens, lakes. I had always daydreamed about sitting in long grass, reading books..you catch my drift
Going to see my then boyfriend's mom touched me in the exact place I had kept for my imaginary country life. Her name is June and she is as sunny and likable as the month. She also has the sweetest southern accent you could ever imagine. June brought me with her to go see a friend who had just had a newborn baby. She had fixed the a delicious meal for them and we were going to deliver it and see the baby. I'm not sure why I took so much delight in it all. The drive was long and in the middle of nowhere. It just felt sweet. She read my mind when she passed that baby to me to me too-Her smile glowed as much as my heart felt it.
My most favorite time with her was when she was having an emotional day. Things hadn't gone her way and we had showed up later then we wanted to. When we walked up she was in her garden peddling around. She walked over with a watering pitcher in her hand. Her eyes were filled with tears even though she was trying not to cry. After eating, she asked if I wanted to pick tomatoes with her. I was wearing a long skirt and she had given me a basket.(I loveeed the basket) As she showed me her garden and taught me how and what to pick, she talked about her and the bad day she had. I listened and commented but it was the sweetness of the whole picture that touched me. It felt like we were sisters. After we were done it felt like we had gone through therapy, taken a shower, or ran a mile.
It didn't get any better to see bug bites all over my legs She fixed that right up too.
She took me on drives and told me what was growing in every garden, she looked over and said "yew like this, don't yew?" with a big smile. She showed me the tobacco fields and explained to me how it was hung and dried. We saw the shacks they used to hang in. She repeated stories her "daddy" had told her.
Another day she took me to Walmart and on the way we stopped by her neighbor's house who invited me to her house the next day for armenian coffee. I accepted and we went along our way. The next day the last thing I felt like doing was having coffee there. June had no doubts that I was going that day. She got me up and literally made me go. I put on my skirt and walked over to her friends house by myself. As much I was grunting I was happy about it, tickled by it.
June is filed under my favorites- I have a mother but I don't have the mother we'd all imagine having. June is that mother. She gave me my images I had read in books in real life- a very sweet gift
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just wanted to drop in and say, I love Sweetpea, and I am so glad she is here now. You make me smile whenever I see you and make me feel like such a good person

This is one of the sweetest things I have ever read. This is a wonderful thread!

Ever since I could remember, I've wanted to play piano. My mother, being rather musical herself, sings and did a lot of music with church at the time I was a toddler/pre-school age, and my Grandmother, being the most wonderful woman that she is, has the most amazing ability on the piano. She teaches piano to students as a living.
When I was 2, my mother and father divored, and we were left with no choice but to move in with my grandparents, so I had caretakers while my mother was at work (nurse).
I would hear my grandmother and see all the kids my age and older come in every afternoon and just be in awe, thinking, I want to do that someday. My grandmother finally started teaching me music when I was almost 5 years old. She taught me chopsticks She started giving me actual lessons when I began 2nd grade (6 years old).
The joy I felt ever day when I'd actually get to come upstairs during the afternoon and play the piano, was sometimes overwhelming.
I continued my lessons when my mother remarried and we moved to another state. I've kept my music going ever since.. After many years of searching, I finally found the perfect teacher, a gay man, when I began high school. He gave me my first slow piece, and trained me for recitals, which I didnt get to participate in, really, until then.
My first real recital was June of my 9th grade year. I played Gliere's Prelude in Dflat Major. After a nearly flawless performance, I stood up and just smiled. I had finally accomplished something that I had been longing to do for forever. I fucking love my music.
I want to take on the violin and the cello next. And maybe someday the harp.
Ah well, this is my memory for the day.

There was a little girl who lived up the street from me, and this was a novelty, because the only other kids in my neighborhood to play with were boys. She and I didn't see each other very often, because her mother disapproved of MY mother and her status as unmarried. One day though, her mom was out of town, and her dad said that absolutely we could play outside... so off we went.
Across the street from her house, five houses up and to the left if you walked out my front door, was this huge field with wheat that was taller than me, and more gold than any precious metal when the sunset shone on it at the end of the day. We invented a whole new world in that field in one afternoon. After a half-hour or so of trying to find something to do, we realized that if you laid down on the wheat and rolled around for a minute that it would lie down flat for a bit. So we started creating paths to different rooms, each with it's own design and decorating motif, and by the end of the day had well over a quarter mile of field planned out. Then we lay down on our backs, exhausted from all the hard work, and picked out pictures in the clouds until it was almost too dark to get home.
Walking home that day, after spending my time playing with another little girl - who didn't build forts and play war or any of the other tom-boy things I had always done - I felt like I had discovered a new world. My brother's were wrong: not all little girls have cooties.

Love your stories

I'm determined that this thread will catch on here the way it once did...
So I can remember my first boyfriend EVER... I was in kindergarten, and I had the BIGGEST crush on Sonny. I had never had a crush on a boy before, so it was all quite new to me. Our torrid love affair lasted for days - it survived recess, when he got to stand in the front of the line because it was his turn (we went in alphabetical order... it was a much sought after position). It made it through nap time, when he had to lay his mat down next to Kristen, and I had to put mine on the table because I had gotten the highest score on my reading that day. But it could not survive the most horrible fate of all: my best friend at the time's birthday party at the local skating rink.
Picture it: Sonny and I, our young and fragile "like" put up against twenty hyper-active kids all running around on skates and playing video games, eating cake, all that good stuff. So the moment comes and my man challenges me to a speed skating race on the rink. Maybe I should have told him about my lessons, or even brought up that I had an older sister who had spent countless minutes showing me how to get around that damned oval while balancing on wheels. But as the fateful song started to play (Matthew Wilder's Break My Stride if you're keeping track), I took off with a competitive streak that I wasn't aware of until that day, and ended the dreaded race a full three laps ahead of my man. Mom never told me to let the boy win or his pride would take over, so I learned the hard way that men are big whiny babies!!!!
And to this day, I still have never let the boy win just to make him feel better. And while they do whine less as they get older, they still hate losing to a girl!! :D

I remember one summer, being about eight years old, and camping with my family at the river. It was a cool summer, and the wind blew through the trees most of the night, making odd shadows of monstrous looking shapes on the tent walls. The day had been full of swimming in the amber colored water (which I later learned was NOT dirty--just tinted with natural tannic acids). We'd also chased after some animals and made sand castles and marveled at the way the white river sand makes a squeaky/squishy sound when you walk on it a certain way. I was exhausted but still able to lie there a little in the tent, listening to the wild outside world. Our radio was playing, and I remember "The Bluest eyes in Texas" being on and causing me even more fear b/c the song contained the word "haunting" and that would lead to my thinking about ghosts. (I thought too much, even as a child!) Eventually I remember coming to the realization that if something were to happen my daddy was there and would be able to protect me. Comforted by this, I drifted off to sleep to the night sounds by the Satilla river.

My first REAL date was my junior prom. We went with 2 pairs of my friends as a triple date. It was with a guy named John, whom I was in love with/obsessed with all through high school. I know now he's a psychotic asshole, but I was too blind to see it then. We all met at my friend Jessie's grandparents house, to take pictures and what not. Then we left to go to the prom.. The decorations there were corny as hell, lol. People that usually wouldn't talk to me when I was with *my friends* came by for a few quick words, complimenting me and what not. We stayed for about 1-2 hours, danced once with my date, then Scotty, my friend Adreane's date, started whining like a 3 year old, 'I WANNA GO!" He knew he was gonna get laid that nite... and he was gonna "roll" in a hotel room with some of his friends later that nite (I had know fucking clue what ecstasy was at this time.. i thought you smoked it ) So, we left. Went to Waffle House so whoever wanted to change could change. Ate some hashbrowns, then left for McGee park. There, my friend Jessie and Scotty went down into the lake access and fucked like bunnies on a picnic table. Me and John just stayed up in the car, blasting black metal and chillin. John knew I liked him *like that* but he never made a move. Never even kissed me. He passed out at the steering wheel, until I got the idea to start flashing the brights down into the access to speed the bunny rabbits up. We drove off a couple of times to REALLY convey our message Ah well. I guess I can respect that. Jessie is now referred to by Scotty as "that person." THey haven't talked since She took his virginity.. ah well..
My life is strange. Yep.

Post a story, babe :D
Let us into your mind.

**warning, this isn't a happy memory, just something i had been thinkin about lately. so i aplogize in advance***
i remember feeling like i would crack into a million pieces that day. i was 18, he was 17
..he was a crackhead?
i didn't know how to react...i thought they were messing with me.
i mean..we used to joke about it. i always told him how if he *ever* did that...i would hold the only thing against him that i possibly could...my friendship.
I thought even though we had broken up, my 3 year heartfelt friendship would hold some value to him.
Apparently not (but i can't blame him totally).
I slowly got told all the different details
..how he and our best friend would drive to akron and buy it (smoking on the expressway while driving)
...how they almost drove off the rode coz they dropped a rock in his moms le sabre (leather interior is expensive to replace).
..how they sold all the cd's i had let them borrow (apparently working wasn't paying enough, or daddys bank account was dwindling)
...how they stole bryans bank card and took money out of his account (which is obviously okay, coz hes loaded)
all these things made me more angry...and all i wanted was to hug them, to make them see that they were so much better than that. that they were too young. that what happens when you are older, wiser and lived a little longer is what matters. living the life of a 30 year old by the time you are 18 is scary...i did it...they shouldn't.
eventually they cleaned up. but to no avail.
hes doing meth now..and the other one is snorting oxys (outpatient rehab worked, really).
i always thought they were smarter.
i always had more faith.
until that day. when they told me in lunch. they critized my moderate/light drug use. told me i was worthless...then asked to borrow twenty dollars.
but i guess it happens sometimes.
and i guess i will learn to survive.
missing them, how they used to be.
how i used to be.

I've had a complaint that this is a thread for girls to talk about being little girls. (Although if that silly boy would read the posts more carefully, he might realize that he is WRONG )... so let's see if we can't change that.
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hmmm...let's see...one of my favorite memories...I'd have to say the first time I ever really listened to electronic music. I got draged to mother ruckers by some freinds of mine a couple year ago. That night peode and misstress were spinning. I had no idea how to dance to peode (I was a little scary prep at the time) then mistress came on and was spinning dnb and it really got a hold of me and I loved it! I ended up having so much fun. If it weren't for mistress I prolly never would have gone to parties or really gotten into electronic music. I never saw her spin again after that night, but she is going to be at my boy's party! How is that for a memory that isn't about being a little girl!

i miss the only girls i have ever really considered my frineds..... come back inot my life. i really miss you guys

I miss you too Tinkers.
I distinctly remember my first pet. It was a black cat, with white mittens for paws, and I named him Touson, after a company my mother worked for. I was three or four and it sounded like a REALLY perfect name. I was more fascinated by that cat than any person that I had ever met. I loved how he stretched, how he pranced around like he owned everything, that it took him ten minutes to find a spot to settle but he could lay there for hours, how he would take his time in absolutely everything he did so that it would be just to his liking. Very feline. I remember wondering why people didn't live that way - sometimes I still wonder that. It got to the point that I would follow him around the house, thankfully he didn't seem to care. And when he would eat, I would lay down in the kitchen floor beside him, lay my head down, and watch sideways while he had his dinner.
We had him less than a year before he ran away from the house, and my mother immediately came home to comfort me, surprised to find me playing like nothing was wrong. When she asked me if I was okay about Touson having left, I told her sure. "You can't stay comfortable in the same place forever Mommy, it was just time to go." Glad I still live that way.

i remember my best friend Tamara, who was actually Mera to me. We were 12 years old, both big into nature, loved gardening, and would spend hours mucking around in her big back yard, with Lisa Loeb on the porch stereo behind us. But i think the best times we had were in Rattray Marsh, where we'd take off our shoes and padde up stream to where there was nothing but forest around us, no paths, no body else, and just play. We'd carve the crumbling shale out of the sides of the banks and pound it into a smooth clay, adding flower petals and leaves to give it colour. Sometime we'd make sculptures with it, sometimes we'd roll it into balls to dry and then take it home and pound it into powder for later use, and other times we'd just use it to paint pictures on the big flat dry rocks with paintbrushes we'd made from whittled sticks and our own hair. We spent hours and hours down in that marsh, calling ourselves by our 'nature's names': i was Little Pebble, and she was Running Water. We'd pack a picnic lunch of fresh fruit and juice and sandwiches and eat down on the banks of the creek, writing poetry and just talking about things we loved. I still have many of the little paintbrushes and clay things we made, wrapped up and safe in a little box, but sometimes, i wish i still had her to share them with.
aj the femme

catching zicada's in the park with my nan and pop