Tell me a happy childhood memory.  That was my assignment from a well meaning therapist from one of my early counseling sessions.  She said this memory had to belong to me and include me and my adoptive family.  Simple assignment.  Impossible to complete.  I even recruited my sister Kate’s help.  Kate was adopted from Korea too.  Neither one of us could then, or now, come up with even one happy family memory.   

So a while later, I changed the assignment to remembering good times that did not have to include anyone else.  Just me.  To accomplish this challenge, I would sit and will my mind to be still.  Still enough to allow my slide show to begin.  I am glad to report that I have retrieved some memories that make me smile.  I savor and cherish all of these simple moments from my childhood.   

My first slide is worn from much viewing.  My head is warm from the sun’s heat; my black hair soaking up the sun’s rays.  I am sitting at an angle on top of our tar papered root cellar door.  The door was built higher at the top with a downward slope to let the melting snow or falling rain flow off easily.  The little pebbly grains of the sun-armed tarpaper prickled my skin when I moved my legs so I sat still.  The distinctive smell of hot tar filled my nose.  To this day, this smell takes me back to that simple blue-skied summer moment.  I adore the smell of tar.  

That summer day, I was a 3 or 4-year old little girl.  Beyond the memory of the aroma of tar and the sun’s warmth on my head, is the memory of being entirely in the moment.  Just being there.  There is the remembered feeling of sadness washing through my body and a simultaneous acknowledgement of it.  No struggling against my emotions.  No judgment of sad being good or bad.  Simple acceptance.  Just the body feeling and the sensory memories.  That moment to me, is my beginning.  Just hanging out in the sun on an Alaskan summer day. 

And then, I am the 6 or 7-year old little girl on a hot, humid Maryland day.  I am standing barefoot in our garden between the rows of vegetable greenery.  A saltshaker tightly held in my right hand and a warm ripe juicy tomato in my left.  There is warm tomato juice dripping down my brown arm and the tangy salty taste in my mouth.  I am savoring every bite.  The smell of hot tomato vines hangs thick in the air.  Warm dirt between my toes.  Pure heaven. 

Same Maryland home, back behind our dilapidated barn on another hot summer day.  I am still the 6 or 7-year old girl and am squatted down in the rich black soil intently digging for earthworms.  I am rewarded with lots of them.  I tell them stories while I play with them.  No fear.  Their bodies are long and really fat.  These earthworms are not suffering from malnutrition.  I dig and dig with a stick and my hands.  Many earthworms play my game that day. 

The two-story wood framed house where we were living at the time used to be part of a bigger estate.  Ours was the servant’s quarters.  The good-sized garden where I stood chowing down on tomatoes was on the front portion of the property.  The barn sat back a ways directly behind the house.  Our outhouse situated between the two.  The barn and the outhouse were built from raw brown wood weathered to a silvery brown.   

Our outdoor water pump sat on top of a metal covered box a little ways from the enclosed back porch.  This was our source of water and on weekends we filled a galvanized tub to take our baths.  This pump sat high enough off the ground that I had to climb up on its metal frame.  It was the kind of pump with the long red metal handle.  Water had to be poured into the top while you pumped the handle hard.  The handle had to clink against the body of the pump when pushed down and then it had to be brought up high, as far as it would go.  If you pumped the handle fast and hard enough, soon water would begin gushing out.  This process is called priming the pump. 

It took both my sister Kate and me to prime the pump as were both too small to do it alone.  So we worked together.  I can tell you that the shiny metal was very hot in the often times 100 degree Maryland summer days.  The reflection of old Mister Sun shone so bright that we wore a permanent squint.  Kate and I would dance around on this hot shiny metal with our buckets in our hands.  Our feet were tough from going barefoot all summer but the metal felt white-hot.  We were relieved when the priming water splashed onto the metal surface, sizzling and steaming, cooling off our cooking feet.  And when the water started coming out of the pump, first lukewarm and quickly icy cold, we were even happier.  I guess happiness and being relieved are kind of the same feeling because what I remember is feeling happy.   

Simple things most often bring us the most pleasure and the fondest memories.  Sometimes the most ordinary of events can be the very best.  To tell you the truth, having ordinary memories to share brings me delight.  Being adopted from Korea and growing up with White parents, in White neighborhoods did not lend itself to my feeling ordinary.  I can tell you that feeling ordinary has its place and is a good thing some times.  To this day, I love the smell of a tomato vine when my hand brushes up against it on a hot sunny day.  The salty taste of a warm vine-ripened tomato brings me utter bliss. 

Some people might skip over the value of my happy childhood memories and get high centered on my not having one that includes my entire adoptive family.  That would be a shame.  My happy memories, no matter whom they include or do not, help me look life’s other grimmer realities in the face and not be cowed by their enormity.  Remembering even one good thing can last a person a life time.   

    

@junemoon  2003    (previously published under the name Jung Leehi)