Part 1 - My Lifes Story

I’ve decided to keep my story in my own words. Its raw, authentic charm captures the innocence, curiosity, and sensory details of my childhood just as I remember them. It’s personal, genuine, and truly me.

Part 1 – My Life's Story

Let me take you on a story that’s about adventure. When I was a child, my life was spent mostly by myself. When I say this, I mean that a lot of the time I was given freedom to wander anywhere. It wasn’t because my parents didn’t care about me or what I did; it was because, in the early stages of my childhood, I saw only my mother, and that wasn’t often, as she was always working hard, leaving early and returning late at night.

I could count the number of times we moved around the country. My mother would sometimes leave me with friends or family members, strangers in my case, as I never knew who they were. Sometimes it was a week or maybe longer. I guess in those days there was no such thing as family support or government assistance. Looking for better options that were cheap or available at the time, who else could be better than the help of another individual willing to help my mother?

I remember most things, though not clearly, but what I do remember, I will certainly remember forever.

Let’s go back to when I was maybe four, only guessing, because how would I know how old I was at that age? I know because I remember sitting down by an oak tree, or maybe it was a maple, because I can still smell the tree’s aroma while playing at its roots, being fascinated by a pool of water that some roots had captured. I remember placing my hand into the cold, clear, fresh water. As soon as my hand went in, the movement of soil from underneath turned my water into a brown, muddy substance. I could feel the roots below and was fascinated by what might be down there.

Around me were walnuts, now I know it was a walnut tree. Now I’m thinking, had I been here before, to this farm? Maybe. Even writing this memory down, I am starting to remember more, and I am starting to smell the diesel of the farm machinery. Now I can see that there may have been a sheep-shearing shed nearby. The ground was hard, and the dry grass was a yellowish-green color. Again, I am seeing, not walnuts this time, but oak tree seeds, brown seeds everywhere. The feel of them takes me back for sure. Just like this sheep-shearing shed.

Now I see myself inside the shed. So let me describe to you what I am seeing. The smell of wet wool and sheep dung on the ground, the pens where sheep were held, an area like a stage with shears hanging down. But there was more to the smell of wool and sheep dung, there was something else. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but maybe it was the white pigeon droppings that were everywhere, especially on the handrails, rafters, floor, walls, and ground as well. Maybe that was the extra odor, mixed together, forming this memory of what it was like back then.

Without knowing, I completely, in my innocence, climbed over and under the wooden pens and rafters until I finally made it outside, following the exit to where the sheep were taken, like a corridor to the unknown. In my memory of writing this, I just smelled it again, and there is definitely something else that wasn’t so pleasing to the nose. I guess I will need to visit another sheep-shearing shed to try and capture more of those embedded memories.

Look out for Part 2 of My Life's Story. This story will continue as a Label.