"The house you lived in when you were seven.”

Ten minute writing exercise- via- Writer Afoot
"The house you lived in when you were seven."

I’m lying on the living room floor on long thick lime green shag carpet in front of the black and white television. It's back in the day when you had to move to change the channel, of which there is only three. It sits on a metal stand and to the right of me is the front window very large. My strongest memory of that window is the plants my Mom had in it and the big one in the middle that hung from the ceiling. It was macrame, and I cannot remember if she made it, but I do remember being embarrassed by it. Now I look back and wonder why? Why was I embarrassed about this, at the time I thought it was ugly, now having lived a slight hippie lifestyle it would be antique and cool. One of the strongest memories I have of that living room, is lying on this carpet watching the television and the neighbor’s daughter knocking and coming in so upset that Elvis had died.

The house had three bedrooms and sat atop of Scootney hill in Othello. Some winters when it was a bad winter, a car would take the corner to fast and end up in our yard. So my Dad put in some railroad ties and rocks. One summer he planted rutabaga and it seemed liked forever we were digging and getting rid of it. We had a above ground pool in the backyard one summer and ran around all over the neighborhood terrorizing, having fun. A time in history when kids were allowed to roam free through town unattended. 

In the bedroom my sister and I shared we had bunkbeds with matching blankets with our names on it. They had lime green trim, and matched the carpet. Later when we moved to the country my friend Michelle moved into this house and my memories of her in that room tie in with my own sometimes so that I can’t remember whose it was at the time. For instance Patrick Duffy of Dallas pin-up on the wall where all us bluebird and campfire girls took turns making out with him pinned to the wall by the door. The more I recall this memory it’s her time in it and not mine.