Do you have a “first” moment – the moment you first remember as a child?
Most of us can’t recall the first few years of our life – the babyhood of crying or teething or ruining our parents’ sleep. We can only believe our moms when they tell us that if they didn’t give us enough attention we emptied the flower pot, then played with the dirt on the rug, or how we crawled out of our crib at nighttime and slid under the card table during bridge night, refusing to come out.
Fortunately, my first moment is not of getting spanked or being denied a second cookie.
My first memory is playing in a sun puddle in my parents’ bedroom with my paper dolls. Satiated after a summer morning at the kiddie pool, I find a spot in a safe room, so happy in the quiet, in my aloneness, feeling the sun sift into my body, loving me, wanting me, helping me feel whole.
Fifty plus years later, I gravitate toward indoor pools of sun like a snake to its rock. I search first for the book I’m reading, and then I sink onto the floor, reunited with my old friend, the sun, and feel her surround me, enter me, revitalize me while also relaxing me. All problems, stress, worries melt away like an ice cube left out on a warm counter, and I become one with the floor, the room, the air, the universe.
The adult is the child, and the child is the adult.
Ahhhhhhhhh.
What’s your first moment?
roughwighting 
Aww, sun puddles, how lovely! And glad to see Mike’s book featuring! 🙂
My earliest memory is actually from when I was one year old, I was on a trip in Ibiza with my parents and I had a big inflatable dolphin – my memory is of being held on top of the dolphin in the pool, watching its nose bobbing up and down in the water.
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What a LOVELY memory! I hope you’ve had other moments – as an adult! – of someone holding you on top of a dolphin (or a raft, or in two strong arms) as you float lazily and in pure contentment.
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An adorable post.
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🙂
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Don’t have a very first memory moment. There are many childhood memories and I have no idea which one was the first.
But I like to sit or lie in the mid morning sun when the light is filtering through the blinds as I take a mid morning nap or work a crossword puzzle. It’s warm and penetrating and feels cozy.
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YES, there is nothing like finding that ‘hot spot’ with that mid-morning sun filtering through us. I think it has healing properties, don’t you?
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Absolutely, the sun must have healing properties. I see my dogs lying in the sun, even in the hottest months. It must feel soothing.
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Love the term “sun puddle!” I am adding it to my vocab 🙂
My first memory is climbing into our Studebaker in a party dress and being happy because my big girl underpants had ruffles all over the back of them!
I also remember being put down for a nap on one of the twin beds in our guest room and being given a dropper of vitamins – I swear I can still smell and taste them! The bedsbread had a seersucker texture and was light green with strawberries….
Happy Weekend!
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“bedspread!”
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Oh, those undies with the ruffles on the bottom. How I LOVED them. Except I remember being so upset because my mom wouldn’t let me wear the ruffles in the front instead of the back.
Isn’t it comforting, somehow, returning to these memories, even if they’re vitamin drops on a bedspread? xo
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You do not want to know the moments that I remember, they are all flashbacks. I have been using the yard again to walk, to pace, and even on the coldest of days feeling the catch of sun warm through even grey nearly sunspottedness skies is amazing, a winter gift. 16 days until the light begins to grow again!
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Now that I’m in New England, I’m counting the days until the light grows longer also. When I’m walking, looking for those sun spots, I think I’m actually pacing as well. :-0
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“Sun puddle.” What a wonderful expression.
My first memory is dressing myself and going outside one summer morning. My mother’s friend saw me on the sidewalk and reprimanded me because I’d forgotten to put undies on. Tee hee
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Tee hee, indeed, and good for your young self! Ah, some of the best memories are those in which we aren’t yet conscripted to what ‘normal’ or ‘proper’ is, aren’t they?
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I’m amazed I thought of this memory. Wasn’t sure I’d share, but what the heck. I was about five at the time.
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I hear ya, Pam! I still like to lie on the floor in the sun with my book and a cat. We are sun goddesses after all! 🌞
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I never doubted it! (When you return from AZ, let’s meet at the CI at a window table and connect!)
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Sun puddles….you are wonderful with words, I love it.
I think my first memories of my childhood is sneaking into my parents bed, laying in the middle. Germans push two beds together and use individual covers, my parents had thick feather beds. I was feeling cozy, warm and loved.
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Those are the memories we are so so fortunate to have!
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I love the term “sun puddles”. I don’t know which memory is the first. I remember stepping on a nail when we lived in Germany. I was three or four at the time. I still have the spot on my foot where it entered.
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Ouch! But it’s kind of neat that you still have a mark of that childhood trauma, which hopefully also brings you back to sweet childhood times. Hey, I wonder if you were in Germany the same time Gerlinde (the reader who commented right above you) was.
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Luckily, I don’t create one of my first moments forty years later – ahem – eating the beanie ball off the top of a ski hat 😉 Well, okay, I don’t quite remember that, but my mom reminds me of it every chance she gets so it has worked its way into my memory bank quite securely 🙂
The adult is the child, and the child is the adult. This is a simply profound statement, and one that I appreciate as much as an adult who was formerly a child as I do serving as a father to an eleven year old son who will be an adult way too soon.
Thanks for sharing and best wishes for an inspired day filled with sun puddles and good books 🙂
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I suppose it’s good you don’t remember the ‘beanie ball incident,’ yet it would be nice to know how it tasted. Since you’ve not done it again, I’m guessing not that great. 🙂 But watching a child as he grows into adulthood – now that IS great. Enjoy the ride!
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How nice. I’ve never thought of “sun puddles.” Very descriptive! My first memory? So hard to say. I had a rather traumatic childhood surrounding my father, so I remember bits and pieces of him. And I get confused about whether I remember other things–are they my memories or am I remembering the stories I was told?
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I kind of wonder about some of my memories too – are they from a ‘long ago’ photo that my mom showed me, or do I really remember? Then again, some of my memories couldn’t possibly have photos attached (let’s just say I was much wilder as a toddler than as an adult..) and so I know they’re mine.
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Love your “sun puddles” – as you know I also LIKE the sun!! your mom
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You shine in the sun.
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I’m trying, Bruce! But I’m still searching for that sun here as I visit the SF bay area with lots of much needed rain. Hope you’re walking in the city and singing in the rain, as you enjoy.
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You shine when it’s overcast, too.
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I have a few…the day Mom and Ang gave me the cowgirl/Sally Starr outfit (I wore that, boots and all, to bed), the moment I realized I had a pink bike with tassles on Christmas morning. The snow forts in the front yard, the baseball games in the backyard, the birthday they rented a pony (in suburbia) to have for my special day. The meatloaf. Ew. The liver. Double Ew. The dictionaries and maps and such spread out on the dining room table. The jigsaw puzzles, always on display, in the living room. The big band records always playing, us, always dancing.
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Those are such good memories, Karen, and thank you for reminding me of Sally Starr! Oh oh oh. I had a Sally Starr doll that I absolutely loved. You were lucky to have an entire OUTFIT. Yes, and I shared your EW on liver day (with onions and bacon) and I can hear your big band records while you worked on a jigsaw. Lovely.
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Sadie likes sun puddles, and so do I, however if I sat on the floor to long I probably couldn’t get up very easily. 🙂
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Too funny, Bonnie. So true, our joints like the warmth of the floor sun puddle, but then they complain when we ‘get on up.’
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My earliest memory is of sitting in a red high chair. My mother is feeding me, trying to coax me to eat… and she is singing ‘Eeensy Teensy Spider Went Up the Spider Spout…” I am very, very young.
How funny, to write that childhood memory so many years later.
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Isn’t it astounding and neat to suddenly let that memory spring forth for a bygone age? What a good deep down one, too, to see that red high chair and hear the spider song. Thanks for sharing it!
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Sun factors into my early memories as well. Mom would put me outside in the prairie sun and I would be so happy. I am always seeking sun which is why hubby and I have retired to Spain!
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Okay, I admit. I’m envious of your Spain voyage on this next segment of your life. And I look forward to seeing your Spanish sun blog photos, so I can enjoy it vicariously through you.
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Please do! Sun again today!!
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Sun puddle – brilliant! Actually, I just got Mike’s book myself! So cool to see a photo of it here:-) Hmm not sure off the top of my head about my first first, but an early memory that comes to mind is being at the top of lots of steps leading down to a wonderful beach in Crete wearing a white summery dress with blue polka dots, and me standing there just enjoying the view before running down…. I think I was about 5ish. Lovely post. H xxx
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It’s fascinating to me to see how long it takes for us to have a first memory. When I play with my baby grandkids, I wonder – will they remember this time, this nursery rhyme, these giggles and tickles? But in the end, I think even our early early baby times soak into our psyche.
Love your white and blue polka dot Cretian memory.
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Lovely first memory to have and even better that you continue to play it out. Precious for that little girl inside.
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May we always continue to play in our sun puddles throughout our years! 😎
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Boy, I picked a heckuva weekend to avoid the internet! Thank you my friend for the Sun Puddle Shoutout!
My first memory is being strapped into a molded plastic seat on the back fender of Mom’s bicycle. I always loved these rides but wished my chair was strapped to the handlebars so I could get a better view.
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The Internet (and your fellow bloggers) will never allow you to ignore it (us). 😈
I like that you wanted to be a front rider, even as a kid.
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I wasn’t ignoring, I was putting up Christmas decorations! You know I’d never ignore my bloggy buddy!
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Wonderful Pam! Fortunately I never emulate my first memory these days. I used to sit in bed rocking backwards and forwards telling my mother I was going to London 🙂 They must have thought they were rearing an idiot.
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Actually, I’m remembering a nursery rhyme about taking the train to London. I’d guess that’s what you were doing. And maybe you were searching for sun puddles while you were rocking your way to London. (!)
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