The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: childhood

  • Silent Legacies

    There are stories that we will never be privy to.

  • Random Memories from Childhood and What They Taught Me

    Children are very impressionable.

  • Cycle Perspective

    My bike was everything.

  • Adult-y Chores

    I was feeling petulant, so I did what petulant people do these days. I left a snarky post on Facebook: “There’s nothing worse than adult-y chores,” I was thinking. I had to go to the dentist and get a filling. I had to have the rear struts on my car replaced. I had to go…

  • Stepping on Cracks

    The other day I was walking up the bridge to work and I realized I wasn’t stepping on any of the cracks. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” I took that very seriously when I was a kid. I spent most of my childhood convinced that my mother would die at any minute,…

  • My Happy Easter Memory

    Since I’m not a kid or a Christian, Easter tends to go by without my taking too much notice these days. Like Halloween, it’s kind of a non-holiday holiday for me. But when I was little, I absolutely loved coloring eggs. (Come to think of it, I’d probably still find that fun. Therapeutic, even. )…

  • Assuming the Worst

    When I was 11 years old, I brought some candy to school. They were those little, sugary mints that most kids have seen a million times. My best friend back then was kind of gullible, though, so when she asked me what it was, I told her it was drugs. I thought it was kind…

  • Tent Life

    Every day here in Seattle I drive past little homeless encampments. They seem to be everywhere. They gather under the overpasses, in the little clumps of forest, and even on the sidewalks. Their tents are ragged and dirty, and usually they sit amongst a field of garbage. It’s heartbreaking to witness, especially during a pervasive…

  • I Was a Book-Nosed Girl

    To say I had a dysfunctional childhood would be putting it mildly. Purely to save myself, I spent a great deal of time dissociating from my daily reality. In fact, I really can’t recall much from ages 11 through 13. I can say that I watched Mr. Rogers until an embarrassing age. He was the…

  • Coloring for Adults

    I seem to have stumbled upon a new fad: coloring books for adults. These are books of very elaborate line drawings that you can then color with pencils or crayons. I even heard on National Public Radio yesterday that it’s become so popular that there’s currently a worldwide shortage of colored pencils! I discovered it…