What Childhood Toy?

I liked this quiz.  Of course, I didn't play quite so much with dolls as with my dollhouse, but I could happily spend hours lost in play with the dollhouse, creating whole worlds and scenarios for each of the "characters" in my hands (or head as the case may be!)

You Are a Doll

You've always been a nurturing person, even when you were too young to nurture anyone else. You tend to be very socially oriented. Other people matter to you, and you are very compassionate. You are naturally intuitive and understanding. You love people for who they are. It makes you feel valued to be needed. You like have others depending on you, and you're always happy to lend a hand.

What Childhood Toy Are You?

Work is Hard. Time for Blogthings!

Fond Childhood Reading Memories - the Giant Pink Sea Snail...

Did you ever read the Dr. Dolittle books? Not the Eddy Murphy modernized movie versions, but the classic children's books set in England? I read them all as a child, and loved each and every one of them. There was something fascinating to me about the round little doctor who used to doctor humans, before he learned to speak various animal languages and found doctoring animals to be so much better work.

I was thinking about those books just now, because a favorite scene popped into my head.

I have no idea what stirred the memory, but I was thinking about the scene where Dr. Dolittle and his entourage are ferried beneath the sea by the giant pink sea snail. The details are blurry in my head, but I remember being fascinated by the idea of this snail, and traveling safely to the other side of the sea within it's shell. There is this image of warm and cozy pinkness engrained in my memory, imparted somehow as I read.

A funny, fond memory to rest in this afternoon as I sit at my desk puttering. Childhood reading has left me with such fond memories, and it's always fun when a particularly fond, if somewhat random one such as this springs to mind. Especially since one usually leads to another... As a voracious reader that read close to 200 books some years as a child, there are so many fond memories of escaping into various literary worlds. (I'm already pondering Pippy Longstocking memories, and others from there...)

Childlike and Grownup

I told a friend in an email tonight that in some ways I spent the weekend revisiting some of the very few extraordinarily happy childhood memories I have. And, that in some ways, I spent the weekend dealing with the very adult realities of my day to day life. And that I walked and prayed amidst both of those spaces.

The route home from where we hiked and where I sat in a mountain meadow to pray yesterday goes very near a spot I loved in childhood. As a pastor's family, we weren't exactly well off, and, since my dad's vacation preference tended towards any place as far from other human beings as possible, we spent a lot of family vacations camping. I hate camping. But I have a few very fond memories of some moments spent in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. Riding our bicycles along some stunning paths in the mountains to the Boulton store to get ice cream for an after supper treat on a sunny day. Riding on a cooler day to the interpretive centre and learning about this beautiful terrain we were staying in. Sitting around a campfire as dad made stories like the chronicles of Narnia come alive for us. (In fact, he made them so alive, that, when the first Narnia movie was released, when I was asked my opinion of it, my ultimate response was, "the characters were better in my head.) Those moments didn't last all that long - we grew older and the family dynamics changed. But there are precious memories for me in those moments with the five of us watching the chipmunks while eating icecream at Boulton, or sitting around the campfire, singing, or listening to dad read to us. In knowing the deep love and attention of my parents.

Whenever I get the chance, I revisit those memories just a little, with a stop at the Boulton store for ice cream. L and I stopped there, and at the interpretive centre yesterday afternoon.

I also have very fond memories of the amusement park rides at Heritage Park historical village. It's a little known fact that I love amusement park rides (unless the stated goal of the ride is to make me so dizzy, or flip me around so many times that I can't help but become ill.) And I'm just enough of a history geek to love the simple, old-fashioned rides at Heritage Park. L and I went to the park today to explore, and we went of some of my favorite rides. (I think the only one we really missed was the merry-go-round, and, since we bought season passes, I'm sure we'll catch it next time!) There are photos from that trip here. I remember specific moments on each of the rides as a child. But mostly I remember feeling very care-free in those moments. Sitting on the swings and feeling as if I was flying. Knowing deep joy.

It isn't that I had a particularly terrible childhood, just one that was full of other pulls and demands on my parent's time and attention. One that was shaped by the deep challenges they were facing as individuals and as a couple. I wrote here, some time ago now, about the shift that took place, about what it was like to see the changes from those carefree moments take hold. So those moments of pure love and joy and basking in the attention of family are precious to me. And I take time to remember them, to hold them close and rest in them for a moment.

And yet, those remembrances were juxtaposed this weekend with the very real grown up challenges of life. Of broken relationships, and aching hearts. Of struggling and wrestling and praying. Of paying bills and wondering how long my car will last, and where I'll ever find the finances to replace it. Of climbing a mountain in desperation to pray, because so many things weighed heavily on my heart.

And so, in the midst of that juxtaposition, I walk away from this weekend holding close the memory of hearing scripture prayed aloud, and of deeply hurting prayers scrawled in a journal. But also holding close the taste of ice cream melting on my tongue, and the feeling of flying and the laughter bursting forth as I was on the swings, or the moment when your stomach drops out for the first time on the ferris wheel.

Grown-up and childlike, all mashed together in a twisted, oddly, possibly hopeful mess.