When I was a kid, it used to be only the keys. And sometimes not even that. If the keys were missing, some neighbor always invited me to eat if I looked hungry and my parents were both still at work. And I always looked hungry. At least that's what I was told.
One of my precious childhood memories is when I went to ask my dad if I could borrow a rope. As long a rope as possible. He didn't ask what it was for. Only said that he guesses that the longest rope he has is only about 5 meters long.
Thing is, my childhood houses plot had a huge rock and a vertical cliff on it's one side, right on our backyard. I assume still has, the house was sold in 2006. It was about five meters away from the backdoor and about 10 to 15 meters high from the highest point. That was also the spot where there was a vertical drop. I mean all the way down. Down, down, down.
And I wanted to climb that. The hardest part.
I was about 10 to 12 years old.
So I had a rope that I attached to a tree on the top of the cliff. There was also several easy accesses to the top of the rock. After attaching the rope, I came back down to the bottom of the hardest part.
There I was, looking at the end of the rope that was hanging above my head, somewhere around 5 to 10 meters, and started climbing.
My dad came to see what I was doing at the point when I had just reached my hands to the rope. And climbed to the top hanging on the rope.
My dad told me, several years later, that he was about to shout at me what the hell I was doing, when he came to see what I was doing, but decided not to, because I could have startled and perhaps fallen down.
I remember faintly my dads impression on his face when I got to the top. I remember thinking: "This is a good time to say something soothing", and shouted to him something like: "It's a good thing I had this rope because the last bit was the hardest bit. I tied the rope with a secure knot I learned in the scouts."
Yeah.
I have never broken anything in my body.
My sister has.
My sister was a climber too when she was a child. She was warned not to climb to a certain tree. She climbed, fell and broke her arm. She was so ashamed, because she was told not to, that she didn't come home, instead hid under the stairs of our apartment building where we were living at that time. Our neighbor found her there crying and brought home.
I don't remember that. I either wasn't born or was a toddler.
I remember my sister trying to blow my fingers off with her friend. She gave me something, lit it and run away laughing. The thing blew in my hands, hurt like hell and my fingers were black. But didn't break anything thou!
I was about 5 to 7 years old and my sister is 7 years older than I am. She really didn't want to play with me. I totally understand it.
Oh the happy memories!
Fast forwarding several years later.
I remember jumping in to a pool, to a lake and almost in front of a car after my son. When he was about 3 to 5 years old. He ran and laughed and I ran after him because he didn't know that he couldn't swim. I knew. He also didn't know that the lights were green to cars. I knew.
One time I remember shouting in the streets from the top of my lungs: "Someone catch that little boy!" I had shouted first to my son to stop, but he was too busy laughing and running.
So one time he was again running, downhill, towards a crossing and cars speeding by. Didn't notice it right away so he got a head start. There was a woman standing beside another person sitting in a wheelchair. She heard, turned towards my sun that was heading strait to the red lights. Luckily caught him.
Yeah.
Life is.