Under the Baobab Tree

Monday, April 22, 2002

On Being Four

I sat down to write more about being four years old this evening:

I remember thinking the bus ride to school was so long and that we were going so far away from home. I never really had anyone to sit with on the bus -- there were bus politics about which I was unaware. I remember some strange kids who waited at the bus stop with us. And the bus stop was under a mulberry tree. Now I realize the school was pretty much just on the other side of a little itty bitty hill. Oh well.

I remember the day we learned the letter "u" in kindergarten. The teacher's aide thought we couldn't hear her (even though she was standing two feet in front of us) and she turned to the real teacher and laughed and said, "They think it's an upside down 'n'!" I remember thinking the teacher's aide was totally wrong and we didn't think it was an upside down "n," it was a "u." Duh.

I remember the first time I did something wrong in kindergarten. We had these pieces of paper with a word in a column in the middle and two pictures on either side of the word. We had to color the picture that represented the word. I got carried away and colored both pictures. I was mortified.

I remember one day I left my sweater at school and Mom drove me back there to get it. I had to go into the classroom which was full of the kids in the afternoon session and get my sweater out of the closet. I thought I was going to die. Some lady was very nice to me (couldn't' have been the idiotic teacher's aide). I remember thinking Mom had clearly decided to teach me a lesson about losing things, because she stayed in the car and didn't come in and help me. Upon reflection, she probably just didn't want to have to park the car.

I remember one day I came home from school and Mom had gone clothes shopping and had bought me all of these really cool new clothes. She had them all arranged on the couch for my viewing pleasure. I tried them all on. I think that was when I acquired the yellow nightgown with flowers on it that I would own for years through our time in Lisbon.

I remember peeking out my bedroom door when my parents watched Monty Python's Flying Circus and 60 Minutes (this was 1974). Every time I hear the 60 minutes stopwatch, even now, I think of Takoma Park.

I remember always knowing that we had come from Africa and I think I remember being able to point to where Durban was on that old map of ancient Africa that Dad has.

I remember Dad's 29th birthday. We were singing Happy Birthday in the kitchen and he climbed out of the basement.

I remember learning the words "Bom Dia" and "Obrigada" when we were getting ready to move to Lisbon. I remember thinking "obrigada" was the weirdest word and that I would never get used to it.

I remember learning how to ride my bike and how Wes would try to make me wreck on the street. Once he finally succeeded and he got so mad because although I did wreck, I didn't really hurt myself and just kept going.

I remember one day I came home from school and couldn't find my mother anywhere and I was convinced she was lost. I'm not sure how I got home from school alone -- we had stood on the giant (i.e., minuscule) hill near the kindergarten entrance and waited and waited and waited. Maybe someone else drove us home? Was there a bus? Anyway, I tore through the house looking everywhere for her and it turned out she was just in the basement.

I remember my mother would serve us big glasses of milk out of the blue glasses she still has.

I remember one day a bird smashed into the window near the piano and died. Oddly enough, I think I had been standing there staring at the window before the bird smashed into it, and then the bird smashed into it and I thought, "well!" We went outside to look and that's when my mother taught me to sing White Coral Bells . . . (this is probably not really how it happened but it seemed that way).

I remember trailing around after my father and brother in Rock Creek Park. It was always exhausting. I remember I recently found one of the little "beaches" that we used to take our dog Duffy to for runs. That was cool.

I remember learning to tie shoelaces on a big green felt football. I think on the same night I was learning to read the word "hospital" which was really long and I kept messing it up and laughing really hard and my mother didn't think it was all that funny. Apparently she thought I ought to remember somehow that the big long word I didn't know was "hospital."

I remember Dad teaching us how to do hand-stands in the basement. There was an old mattress under the stairs that we used to bounce and rough-house on. Dad also did that thing where he could hold himself up on his hands. I thought that was really cool.

I remember when we left Takoma Park and moved to Lisbon, how Grandma & Grandpa came to Dulles with us and stayed at the Marriott overnight the night before. I remember I didn't realize they weren't coming with us to Lisbon until they didn't get on the People Mover with us. I didn't understand why they were on the other side of the door. NO-ONE HAD TOLD ME!