Another Flashback

 Flashback.....Yes and No

Yes, I experience flashbacks.....and nightmares.

Yes, the kind that are by-products/symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Yes, they have diminished both in frequency and intensity over the year, spiritual breakthroughs, and difficulty, yet life-saving, consistent, healthy, mental calisthenics.

No, that's not the type of flashback of which the title refers.

This morning's flashback was a collective memory of the Christmas Mornings of my childhood.  It was triggered by my first glance through a bedroom window and Looking out on the South Louisiana's Christmas, 2007.  What I saw this morning was a light steady rain, its drops set against the cold, gray, blustery background.   What I saw from my window was a mirror into the past.

Time Transport

I was transported to a time when Spirographs and little football figures vibrating on green-painted metal grids were advanced toy technology.  In my home, to receive even one such gift created a rapturous, once-a-year-delight.  When we were asked, months before the actual day,  what we wanted for Christmas,  our answers were not expected to be a "list" nor was one ever given.  That is why such a weighty decision took weeks of careful thought and hours of study in the "Sears Christmas Catalog."  Though we always received a few other "small" gifts, they were functional; a new shirt or shoes for school. 

Cold, gray, rainy days are ingrained as my childhood Christmas Memory because, "the-one-big-gift" I requested each year were things like a new, regulation-sized  football of real pig-skin, not the rubber kind we used in P.E. or a new Daisy BB gun, a pup tent......and then there was the grand year of my first "new" bicycle, shiny purple, high handle-bars, banana seat...it was up-to-date, modern, like those the kids in the neighborhood hands. Not a hand-me-down from my big brother or reconstructed by my father from several worn-out bikes retrieved from a Salvation Army warehouse.

The Common Thread 

Looking back, it seems that the commonality of each of those special gifts was, after tearing open my father's meticulous wrapping, my immediate desire to dash outdoors and try them out.  Yet, beyond the old wooden front door of the small house on Ritterman St in Baton Rouge, LA was the same cold, gray, wet day that I saw earlier today.  As I write this, unlike that of the collective memory I share, the sun is beginning to break through.

Thus, my first glance outside this morning transported me back to my collective childhood Christmas elation of those precious delights unwrapped, screaming for a young boy to play with them and the seemingly annual disappointment that I and they would have to wait for another day to enjoy them.

Thanks for reading.........Robb