I Remember Me

David Watt

When I was a child I lived by the sea. The sun was bright in the sky but it was not hot, and the grass under our holly trees was very thick and tough. You couldn't walk on it barefoot, it felt like green steel blades.

We lived in a big big house; I have a mind full of memories wandering there. In the bay windows the breeze filled the muslin curtains like the sails of a ship. And when standing in the shade of the long porch that breeze caressed the skin like a love letter from the sea, the sea that was constant no matter what else changed in my little life.

Sometimes the shadows of big white clouds, clouds no doubt bigger than they are today, raced across the sidewalk and I jumped from the porch to chase them, but they always ran faster -- up a wall I could not climb or over the house of the old woman who we children thought was a witch.

Sometimes there were sun showers and I ran outside to stand in the big warm drops, watching rainbows in each one as it fell between the sun and me.

One day recently I went back to that town. The houses do not look as grand or wonderful and the grass seems sparse and dry (but still you wouldn't want to walk barefoot on it). I haven't noticed drops full of rainbows falling from the sky for many years and that brilliant orb seems oppressively hot now; I prefer the air-conditioned comfort of a theatre or restaurant. And yet, when I stand in the blue shade, the sea breeze caresses my skin, it opens me gently, and I remember.