remember how, before we finally installed ac in our 1970s-built split level, summers would bring thick, dry heat into every room? the sliding doors to our dining and living room would have to flung wide open in order to flush out the uncomfortably still air while we tried a little bit hopelessly to coax the occasional breeze in. i remember how the curtains fluttered softly as the afternoon sun stretched into the backyard, ushering in the cool evening. those summer afternoons were often spent in the hallway outside our bedrooms, our one respite from the heat. i recall playing with my stuffed animals (we'd create elaborate storylines and lineages between our characters) with my legs outstretched in front of me or reading with my back pressed flat onto the hardwood to dissipate as much of my sweat to the cool floorboards as i could. my dad eventually had our house retrofitted for an ac system, but i still kind of miss those days i'd spent hiding in the hallway, pretending i was suffering some great calamity with my animal friends :>
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my sister and i used to spend all our free time playing together. we had games only we understood and set rules for (though i admittedly set most of them...), adopting such creative names as "pretend you found me..." (where i would pretend i found her as a little orphan girl on some lonely stoop/fire station/out in the rain/etc.) or "les miserables" (we just reenacted the entirety of les mis with our stuffed toys or lego minifigures). but of all the games we'd play, my very favorite was always "journey" (our stuffed animals would embark on a quest of some sort) while my sister's was "day in the life" (slice of life anime but with our own animals or dolls). even at that young age, i was deeply enamored with lofty daydreams of grand adventure, filled with treasure maps, quest markers, sorcerers and evil queens and lost princesses. i wasn't satisfied simply playing out a day in the life of some ordinary character, i craved swashbuckling and unexpected voyages. i always wanted more. i'd often get my way, too, even goading my sister into petty squabbles more than a couple times because of how insistent i would be. and when those petty squabbles devolved into screaming, crying, and venom-tainted jabs between sisters, we'd be instructed to sit in opposite corners of the house, starting blankly at the wall until my dad figured we'd been punished enough for making playtime a snotty, teary debacle.
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remember how we'd use to fight? stupid, trivial gripes escalating over afternoon play would extend into whispered arguments in the night. we never physically fought, opting for nasty words aimed straight at one another's egos. when we shared a bedroom still, we'd lie in our beds (mine lofted, hers perpendicular below) tucked in with lacey and leo and clara and sealy and penguiny, hissing antagonistic exchanges through our teeth. and though we thought ourselves sneaky, every night this occurred, we'd hear the signature click! -- followed by a soft glow under the door -- of one of our parents waking up and turning on the hallway light to "investigate" our said squabbles. shhhh~! we'd whisper-shout, holding our breaths in hopes that we wouldn't land ourselves into trouble. because, in the end, no matter how big our fights were, we always managed to temporarily set aside our anger at each other in order to unite against the true threat...
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we had all kinds of fruit trees around our house. my mom is obsessed with plants and i'd get dragged along with her to dusty nurseries in the blistering sun often when i was younger. we had a beautiful fig tree in our front yard that was so bountiful each summer, so much so that neighbors would ring our doorbell to ask for a few fruits, to which my dad would always say "come back and bring a basket." we also grew apricots and loquats, which would bear hundreds of fruits every year, pomegranates, and lemons. i quickly grew sick of eating loquats and apricots, and even though i loved figs, i eventually grew sick of them, too. thinking back now, i just miss the days i spent with my dad and my sister plucking ripe figs and driving to drop them off by the basketful to friends and family in our 2008 honda odyssey.
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folding laundry used to be one of my favorite chores. when i was still obsessed with wild kratts (i had a crush on both of them, but i liked martin more), i got very attached to an episode about beavers. something about the way they created their dams, changing their landscapes and making a cozy home for themselves, was especially alluring to me. so, for a few weeks, my sister and i would love to play pretend beavers and build our own beaver dam out of fresh laundry from the dryer. the two of us used to fold laundry for our entire family on my parents' bed (they had a beautiful japandi-style california king bed), so we converted a normally dull activity into the perfect play place. we built our "dam" out of laundry (which was even cozier when it was warm!), piling our colorful tshirts and my dad's slacks (back when he used to kind of go to the office) into "logs" and building haphazard walls out of sweaters and my mom's sundresses. but a dam that wasn't functional wasn't a good dam at all, so we'd also make alcoves for our sleeping areas and storage spots for all the "fish" we'd catch (folded socks). we played beavers for hours every week for a bit, crawling around our dam made of clothing while we created storylines. i don't even remember why we quit, maybe it was because we got bored or simply because my parents were annoyed their bedspread and laundry ended up wrinkled.
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we used to have a cd player in our bedroom with radio incorporated into it. i love listening to music when i fall asleep, and even back when we were kids i'd beg my parents to switch on the radio right before they tucked us in for the night. the station i'd love to listen to the most was 94.5 FM, which played pretty mediocre pop hits of the past few decades during the day. but at night, you could listen to "love songs after dark" which played, well, love songs. every half hour or so, radio host delilah (not sure if she ever had a last name) would receive calls from locals, hearts weighed down with all matters concerning love. and every half hour, she'd impart ceaselessly romantic advice, the kind you'd receive from the venerable middle-aged woman i'd imagined her to be, life lived full of the breathtaking affairs and relationships you'd hear about in books and TV. i'd fall asleep to the sound of her voice, eyelids drooping heavily as she cheered on hopeful dreamers and heartbroken souls alike after "how deep is your love" by the bee gees or "the longest time" by billy joel would play. so from a very early age, i'd been fascinated with love, dreaming of the days i would pursue my own worthy of the moving stories told by these hopelessly romantic, tinny voices through the phone.
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