Post #55 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
By Promptly Portland
As summer winds down and thoughts turn to autumn, I remember what this changing of the seasons meant to me as a child. Summer represented freedom — freedom from homework, freedom from schedules, freedom from expectations. Fall represented excitement — excitement about seeing friends I’d missed during the summer, excitement about new clothes, excitement about learning. I easily moved from one set of childhood routines and experiences to the next.
Now, many years later I find I have created an adult version of these experiences. With summer’s arrival I anticipate the freedom to change from my regular routine — more gardening, more walks and other forms of exercise, more fresh fruits and vegetables. Since I now live in Portland, I feel the freedom to go to Sauvie Island to pick berries. Excitement about the fall? You bet. The return to more sanity in my schedule, even new clothes for my teaching remind me of my childhood.
Friends tell me that they get to relive the best of their childhood experiences through their children. Other friends who were from poor families or dysfunctional families have shared that they try to “fix” their own childhoods by creating quite different experiences for their own children.
Whether childhoods were great or disastrous, we never quite leave them behind. Think about your childhood routines and experiences in today’s writing prompt:
500 Words (or more):
1. Close your eyes and remember a treasured routine from your childhood. Have you found ways to replicate that routine or experience in your adult life? Write 500 words.
2. Recall a holiday that was special when you were young. Have you found ways to incorporate some of the celebration routines now that you are an adult? Write 500 words.
3. If you haven’t kept any of these experiences or routines alive for you as an adult, have you passed them on to your children or grandchildren? If so, how? In what ways have your children or grandchildren changed them? Are the changes for the better or do you wish they would have remained exactly as you remember them?
Until next time,
Promptly Portland
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