Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Blogging, Take 2


So here we are again, doing this blogging thing.  Trying it on for size, seeing how I like it, or other people like it.

And I have nothing to write about.
...
Okay, that's not true.  As my first "blogging" entry, I'll share a memory.

In the course of unpacking boxes to put my books away, now that the tiling is done and I have bookshelves again (thank you, honey!), I found one of those ceremonial sashes one wears across one's chest.  This one was from my Pioneer Girls days, resplendent with patches and pins and other adornments of achievement.  For those of you who don't know, Pioneer Clubs is much like AWANA, or Brownies, or even Girl Scouts, except it's organized by churches, etc.

I have vague memories of Pioneer Girls.  I recall singing and craft type activities - I still have a Christmas mini wreath I decorated.  Or maybe it's my sister's.  She was always better at the crafts thing than I was.  I also have a Bible cover I sewed (poorly) with my then nickname on the binding.  I might, somewhere, still have a denim book pouch decorated with smears of puff paint (remember that stuff?).  I got it all over the door handle of our car the night I made it, so there's a huge smush mark right in the middle, under my name.

I remember a spiral book, too, one of those where every set of two, maybe four pages was some kind of activity that, once accomplished, earned you a badge/patch to sew on your sash.  I finished that silly book in record time, and I remember wearing that sash so proudly every Wednesday until the end of sixth grade.  Or was it eighth?
They still owe me badges for a lot of what was in that book.

Thing is, I'd worked on this sash for about a week several months ago - found it in my sewing box while organizing my closet - sewing on the patches my mom hot glued on for a "graduation" ceremony, telling me I could fix it later.  "Later" turned out to be eighteen years.  So standing in my alcove, looking at it, I decided, of all things, to try it on.  It barely fit, but I managed to adjust it so it actually looked pretty good.  I doubt the "Come to the Dark Side.  We have cookies." shirt underneath contributed to the nostalgia, but it was still nice to see some things hadn't changed, at least not too much.

So much of me is reflected in this thing: my overachiever mentality, my perfectionism, my completionist attitude, my hyper-activity, my enthusiasm, my attempts at creativity.  But so much of who I'm not anymore is in there, too.  I'm not a child anymore.  Life experience has made me more mature, yes, but also jaded, hypocritical, depraved.

Have you ever wanted to go back to being a kid again?  That period after your brain developed enough to create discernible memories, but before you learned about life's cruelties?  Me, too.

~CLynn

2 comments:

  1. Yay Pioneer Girls!! Good times. I can still remember some of the songs we sang.

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    1. Really? I can remember only part of one, the "lamp unto my feet and light unto my path" part, esp. because we had the hand motions to go with it. :) Other than that, nada.

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