Day five...

Day 05 - A picture of your favorite memory.

Oh, how awful my memory is. I don't know if it's because of the car accident that my family suffered when I was nine that somehow I have very little memory of my childhood, or if it's just that I have a poor memory. Maybe it's a combination of both.  Mister and I can have conversations about events we both attended -- like our first dates or concerts we saw or other things that should have stayed with me -- and I have no recollection of them.  It's kind of disturbing, really.  I think that's why I take so many pictures; with those images, I can recall things that happened but would have likely slipped out of my porous mind.  But even with that holey memory and my penchant for taking photos, my favorite memory doesn't have a picture.  It happened when I was a little girl, and it's probably an amalgam of events that became layered on top of one another to create this memory.

I lived in a white house that was almost a ranch-style, but had my parents' bedroom up a long flight of stairs above the garage.  It was all one level towards the street, but the back yard was considerably below the back of the house.  Our kitchen had a window that looked out on the back yard, and our dinette had a sliding glass door that led to our big green deck and its set of stairs that led down to a concrete pad that sat on the edge of the big yard.  Both the front and back yards were good sized, but the back yard was a wonder.  There were huge willow trees that grew at the edge of a seasonal, rain-induced creek (okay, it was probably considered a drainage ditch, but I thought of it as a creek).  When it rained, which is did a lot, since I grew up in Oregon, the creek would fill with rain and my brother and I would go down to the creek and search for frogs, which was a futile exercise.  On one side of our property were thick grapevines that grew enormous grapes.  On the other side of our property were some gorgeous rhododendrens my mother had planted in her flower beds.  And beyond the creek was a huge grassy hill, owned by the old neighbor couple who lived in the yellow house.  On summer days when the grass had been recently cut and the clippings had turned yellow, my brother and I would race each other to the bottom of the hill, but not by running -- by log-rolling down the decline.  Our clothes would be covered in grass and the dried debris would stick in to our clothes, and then in to our skin.  All the pokiness and dirtiness didn't decrease the fun we had.  Even the bruises were worth it.  But that's not my favorite memory.

My mother was an amazing cook, but an even better baker.  She grew up with a master chef for a mother.  Grandma Sallie was a resourceful woman who raised seven children on the best home cooking around.  Mom's cousins still talk about what a wonderful cook Grandma was.  My cousins and I recall the most delicious green beans we've ever tasted, the homemade biscuits, the desserts that rot my teeth just thinking about them, and all the other bounty she prepared for us all.  My mom had a great teacher.  She also had an enormous sweet tooth (I blame mine on her!).  I was so impressed that she had the recipe for chocolate chip cookies memorized and she never had to look it up on a card or in a book.  We'd often make them together.  My favorite part was after she put the chocolate chips in, she'd make me check the bag to see if she'd gotten them all in the bowl.  Of course, she'd left two or three in the bag -- just for me to eat.  But that's not my favorite memory, either.

I remember myself, in the gray Oregon drizzle, searching for frogs in the creek, walking in between the willow trees.  I look up and I see Mom in the kitchen window.  And I know she's making chocolate chip cookies for me.