[Garden Memories: XX]
Growing up, my favorite make-believe character to play was GI Joe, surely due to the popularity of the cartoon but also because camouflage clothes were easy to come by. While we didn’t technically have a Tupperware full of dress-up clothes, we had stacks of camo pants, shirts and jackets—basically the only dress-up attire Mom could stomach.
So, I always wanted to be an “army guy,” and in the world of my imagination, all soldiers would love what I love: fishing and hiking. To be a proper soldier meant I blended into my surroundings—face paint included—and I went on long, adventurous, quarter-mile (!) hikes.
It was always the same outfit and the same destination: camouflage and the big granite outcropping just beyond our property.
Childhood make-believe is paradoxically the furthest and closest thing from reality. The furthest, for obvious reasons. I didn’t have a clue what the military was like, and I didn’t have the capacity to understand war, to name only two. But often it’s the closest because within the imagination of children are the purest desires of the heart. Those early desires are the reality we spend our entire adult lives running from, repressing, or denying.
What memory do you have that carries a truth you've been running from?
