I’ve previously written about my bad memory and the challenges it presents to someone attempting to write a memoir. Today I want to tell you about a few of my earliest memories. I hope that reading these brief moments of my life helps to rekindle some of your own.
I fall out of the bed and hit the wooden floor and the impact jolts me from my peaceful sleep. My mom immediately jumps and asks if I’m okay. I was around four years old, taking a nap next to my mom on her bed, but I vividly remember waking up on the floor, looking up, confused, but not scared. Even though I was asleep until the impact, when I think of this memory, I think of those scenes in movies when someone has a car accident and everything else around them flies in every direction—purses, drinks, cell phones and the like, except for the person held down by their seat belt. I can imagine myself suspended in air like those items, while the bed stayed immovable.
The barbacoa floor was hard and cold. In Cuba, a barbacoa is a platform typically built with wooden beams and planks inside of an existing space. Essentially, my mom added an extra floor to the apartment she lived in. She (or my dad) built a wooden staircase leading up to the upstairs, where there were two “bedrooms.” These were two adjacent rooms without doors. They both were large though, or they felt that way to me back then.
In this brief memory of me hitting the floor, I close my eyes and feel this warm light surrounding me. In my mind’s eye, I see this memory with an unexplainable glow, like a permanent lens flare on a camera. I don’t see that image without that light surrounding me, almost like someone watching over me.
My second earliest memory is of a family outing to Guanabo beach. This trip didn’t involve my entire family, but my only dad’s side. Going to the beach in Cuba, at least back then, was an all day ordeal. You got up really early, either paid a cab or took a few buses, or more often than not both, to make it to the beach. You would arrive to the beach around 9 or 10 a.m. and you’d stay there until 6 or 7 p.m. Transportation is a hassle and expensive and the buses are unreliable and filled with pick pockets. When you go to the beach, you stay all day, or if your cousin knows someone who knows someone, then you can stay at their house close to the beach for a few days.
This trip was one of those where we stayed at someone’s house. The most impactful thing that stuck with me, was my dad sitting on a bed, shirtless with only his swim trunks, inflating a pool float for me. I stood there, watching him, and I remember thinking that my dad was the strongest man in the world. Sure, he was only 25 or 26 and he worked out all the time, but that wasn’t the impressive part. The impressive part was watching him breathe air into this vinyl tube that seemed lifeless a few seconds before he began. It was an astounding feat and it made me think my dad was a super hero of sorts, especially because I inherited his debilitating asthma.
A few minutes later, we took the tube to the ocean. I start showing it off to all of my family, speaking proudly of my dad’s superhuman strength and after a few minutes, my dad’s aunt, Fefa, says she wants to use it. I said no, but I was overruled by another adult and was unceremoniously dismounted and handed to my dad. Fefa then proceeded to try and climb on the tube, but after a few failed attempts, her long fingernails dealt a fatal blow to the tube. In a matter of seconds, all of my dad’s hard work and all of my dreams of carefree bathing in the ocean were deflated.
What are your earliest memories? Why do you think you remember those moments and not others?
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Your vignettes of life in Cuba gave me a taste of something I so wish I could experience. I haven't been to Cuba yet, but one day, I will.
I felt like I was on the beach with you there. Thank you for sharing, and making me question what my earliest memories would be too.
I love how you give such a clear picture of your life in Cuba. It's interesting how our minds remember so clearly certain moments. I suppose they do because those moments disrupted a typical pattern in our days? I remember shaking out all the coins in my sister's piggy bank, but slowly, because she said I could stay in her room until the last coin fell out. :)