Catching up three days
Had a busy weekend, so I'm catching up. Fortunately, the prompts all kind of work together.
First, per azriona, my first memory: To tell the truth, I'm not sure what this might be. My early childhood memories aren't precisely linear. I do remember protesting loudly that I didn't *want* to turn four on my fourth birthday. I also have some vague memories of the duplex my family lived in before we moved to the house that I grew up in. I remember a driveway - cracked, of course, like all good Alaskan driveways - and a metal wind-up car, the sort whose edges you could probably shave with.
Second, per kiwiria, my scariest memory: You'd think it would be the tsunami, but it isn't. That prize goes to another memory. When I was a sophomore in high school and (unbeknownst to me at the time) getting sick with Graves' Disease, I was hungry all the time. One day, I stopped at my locker between classes and dug out a piece of cold pizza I'd brought for lunch. I took a couple of bites hurriedly, and then the girl in the locker next to mine asked me a question. I started to answer her . . . and started choking. Not gagging or coughing, choking. I couldn't make a sound, couldn't breathe at all. I remember everything going all slow-motion and trying to gesture at my throat, to signal somebody that I was choking. My brother's friend (and friend's brother) Mark was nearby, since he had a class near my locker. Mark was generally not the kind of guy you wanted around during an emergency. Think Napoleon Dynamite. Seriously. Without the 'fro, but with the mouth-breathing. I remember Mark yelling something at me, and then grabbing me from behind and performing a perfect Heimlich Maneuver that he'd learned sometime in elementary school. The pizza came up, I went down, and I never rolled my eyes at Mark again. He's done rather well for himself, and neither of us has ever forgotten that day.
Third, per kiwiria, my most vivid memory: Hard to say, but I think the tsunami would have to be it. Just the whole time around it. After I returned to the US, one day, I heard a helicopter, and I had a flashback. A real, honest flashback. It was like I was in two places at once, as if my body were in Hillsboro, OR, but everything else was back in Japan. See, one of the constant sounds after the tsunami was the sound of chopper blades. There were helicopters everywhere. Military, news, medevacs. That sound brought it all back for just a moment of total disorientation. I talked about it later with my Gulf War-veteran brother-in-law, and he understood completely. He's never had the full-on hallucination flashbacks some vets do, but he knows the feeling of being *there* in all but body. I felt that strange displacement a couple of times afterward, but that first time was definitely the strongest.
First, per azriona, my first memory: To tell the truth, I'm not sure what this might be. My early childhood memories aren't precisely linear. I do remember protesting loudly that I didn't *want* to turn four on my fourth birthday. I also have some vague memories of the duplex my family lived in before we moved to the house that I grew up in. I remember a driveway - cracked, of course, like all good Alaskan driveways - and a metal wind-up car, the sort whose edges you could probably shave with.
Second, per kiwiria, my scariest memory: You'd think it would be the tsunami, but it isn't. That prize goes to another memory. When I was a sophomore in high school and (unbeknownst to me at the time) getting sick with Graves' Disease, I was hungry all the time. One day, I stopped at my locker between classes and dug out a piece of cold pizza I'd brought for lunch. I took a couple of bites hurriedly, and then the girl in the locker next to mine asked me a question. I started to answer her . . . and started choking. Not gagging or coughing, choking. I couldn't make a sound, couldn't breathe at all. I remember everything going all slow-motion and trying to gesture at my throat, to signal somebody that I was choking. My brother's friend (and friend's brother) Mark was nearby, since he had a class near my locker. Mark was generally not the kind of guy you wanted around during an emergency. Think Napoleon Dynamite. Seriously. Without the 'fro, but with the mouth-breathing. I remember Mark yelling something at me, and then grabbing me from behind and performing a perfect Heimlich Maneuver that he'd learned sometime in elementary school. The pizza came up, I went down, and I never rolled my eyes at Mark again. He's done rather well for himself, and neither of us has ever forgotten that day.
Third, per kiwiria, my most vivid memory: Hard to say, but I think the tsunami would have to be it. Just the whole time around it. After I returned to the US, one day, I heard a helicopter, and I had a flashback. A real, honest flashback. It was like I was in two places at once, as if my body were in Hillsboro, OR, but everything else was back in Japan. See, one of the constant sounds after the tsunami was the sound of chopper blades. There were helicopters everywhere. Military, news, medevacs. That sound brought it all back for just a moment of total disorientation. I talked about it later with my Gulf War-veteran brother-in-law, and he understood completely. He's never had the full-on hallucination flashbacks some vets do, but he knows the feeling of being *there* in all but body. I felt that strange displacement a couple of times afterward, but that first time was definitely the strongest.