Early morning is my favorite time of day. That liminal space where color starts to touch the sky and you can't perceive exactly when it starts, but it's suddenly just... light.
Sunrises carry many meanings with them, depending on my stage of life and state of mind. As a child it meant precious time where I had the house and space and time all to myself. There's something special about that early morning time between about 3-6am. You feel enclosed in a bubble of solitude. Of peace. No one expects anything important from you at 3:22 in the morning. It's perfectly acceptable, in fact encouraged, to be in bed with the lights off and the fan blowing and the quiet.
I sleep with the TV on. And that time of night, I'm so entuned and it's so quiet I can have the volume low enough to barely be perceptible during the day and still hear. Granted, the subtitles absolutely help, but I can still hear the dialogue.
I wonder if it's related to my auditory processing struggles? I'm half asleep, in a state of fuzzy limbo, but with nothing societally expected of me my thoughts tend to quiet. Is it because the inside of my head is quieter that I can process the sounds easier?
Dear Diary,
I went exploring the neighborhood again today. I've gotten good at figuring out and remember who lives in each house while I'm out riding my bike or playing in the backyard. I like to watch them. The Krantzes, two houses down on the right, have a nice house and the youngest daughter collects Troll dolls too. They have a trampoline, but Grandma says I'm not allowed to jump on it because I might fall and break all the teeth out of my head.
There's this one house that I used to visit, four houses down on the left. There was a nice lady named Eloise that lived there. She smelled like my Grandma. I met her cause one day I decided I want to know who was living in some of the houses I didn't know, so I walked over and knocked on her door and introduced myself. She was nice. She gave me pecan sandy cookies and let me pet her fluffy dog. She had a big backyard that was up against the forest behind the school, and the creek runs through it. When I wanted to play in the creek I would just go to her house and knock on the door and she would let me cut through and go out her back door. I did this almost every day for a summer, it was so much fun! She always had cookies for me.
Then one day I went over there after not going for a long time because I had to go back to school. And a different lady answered the door. When I asked where Eloise was she looked sad and told me that she didn't live there anymore. That she had passed away. This made me sad, but in Sunday school they say when people pass away we get to see them again in Heaven so I'm not too sad.
I am sad that I won't be able to visit her anymore though, and go through her house to get to the creek. All the other neighbors have fences in their yards so I can't get to it anymore.
Dear Diary,
Today I did something scary but exciting and I'm so glad I didn't get in trouble. But if someone found out I could get in big trouble so you have to PROMISE you don't tell anyone okay?
Remember that nice lady Eloise and how I used to go to her house and now someone else lives there and I can't get to the creek anymore?
Well one day I decided to go over there and ask again but when I knocked no one answered. I don't know what made me do it, but I turned the door knob anyway and it opened! I took a deep breath and stepped inside as quietly as I could. I could actually hear my heartbeat in my ears!
I took a few steps forward and nothing happened, and after walking around the living room no one came out and yelled at me so I got brave and explored a little bit. The house looked familiar, they had the couch in the same spot but they had a big rocking chair like Grandpa's where she used to have her little couch. I checked their kitchen for snacks, they had some of the blue Gatorade I like and two of those new Lunchable things stacked in the fridge. I opened all the drawers and cabinets, just to see what was inside. I didn't want to take anything, I only wanted to see what kind of stuff they have and what that might mean about the lives they lead.
After I checked everything out I took a Gatorade and Lunchable so I could have a picnic and went out the backdoor.
I went to my spot by the big rock and sat and ate my snack. It was one of the ham ones though, and I HATE ham. UGH it's so gross. Dad tried to make me eat it once and I threw up so he didn't make me try it again. But the crackers and cheese were good, but the chocolate mint was the best part.
I went exploring a little bit after that, I wanted to find some new rocks for my collection. I have so many Grandma ME says we'll have to ask the neighbor Bob if he'll build me a special box to keep them in. Right now I just carry them around in one of those plastic bags that curtains come in when you buy them from the store. Grandma sells curtains (she says 'I work in draperies') and likes to buy them when they get cheap so we have lots of them laying around.
I had to walk a really far way down the creek to be able to cross over so I could get back to my house. I was lucky that the streetlights hadn't come on but Grandma was still mad. She didn't like it when I came home muddy and with rocks in my pockets.
I hid the trash from the food I took from those peoples houses under my bed. I didn't want to put it in the trash and have her see it and ask where it came from. We never have things like that in the house so she'd know it wasn't ours.
Trash day is on Tuesday so I'll wake up early to sneak it out to the dumpster before the trashmen come.
I wonder what those people thought when they saw that one of their drinks and Lunchables were missing.
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