You only get one childhood and I was reflecting on mine and what I loved doing then.

I played on our old multicolored swings, hanging upside down on the trapeze bar my dad concocted out of rope and a metal bar. I did flips and swung by my knees, stretching my arms all the way down, using my core to gain momentum because I couldn’t reach the ground.

I sat in my backyard petting my first cat, a tuxedo feline named Misty, in the shade, under a mimosa tree on the side of our house.

I spent time in my room, reading, strumming the guitar my abuela brought me from Argentina. I taught myself a few chords, wrote my own crazy lyrics and sang badly. I wrote poems overlooking the woods behind us from my window above my desk.  I played school, acting as teacher and all the imaginary students and loved to play “Spelling Bee” for my weekly vocabulary quizzes, even scolding with consternation whenever a “student” was out of line.

I listened to music on my cool petal pink LP portable player, watching the black album spin from my twin bed.

I was happy, content and liked to make every situation as fun as possible.

I loved being outside, one with nature, contemplating, observing and daydreaming for hours on my back watching the clouds and the sky and wondering even then, what’s it all about?

When I was older and was allowed, I remember walking ” into town” which consisted of one movie house, one bakery, one bank and one general store. I walked everywhere: to school and back in every kind of weather, to town and five miles to church, past the one grocery store and our Carvel ice cream shop. I was gone for hours at a time and as long as I made it back by whatever time, usually dinnertime, no one knew where I was.

Those were the days. No wonder I escape to the treehouse and I am content with solitary endeavors now as a grown adult.