Monday, July 21, 2008
We Had Names
"There are people whose watch stops at a certain hour and who remain permanently at that age."
-Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
My brother and I had designated code names, aliases for one another during our aforementioned water bottle battles and adventurous expeditions.
He was Scorpio. I was Jolly Roger.
I was Jolly Roger who placed cold food in a bag and stayed out all the day long helping Scorpio to dig up the treasure that, according to our map, was almost certainly buried in the long grass of the garden.
Of course we wrote the map ourselves, but that never once diluted the charm of possibility, not for Scorpio and Jolly Roger.
We had names, and we might do well to remember them even now.
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8 comments:
I clearly remember digging in the back-garden, truly believing that I might find china if I stayed committed to the process.
And who knows? If my mom did not stop me I might have made it. And by that time I might even have figured out how to deal with everyone else being upside down.
You had such a wonderful relationship with your brother when you were young. So many adventures! Sounds like something out of Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn or Pippi Longstocking or...well, you catch my drift.
;)
Oh the games we played in childhood. Sounds like you two were quite a pair. I'm sure my sister had a few names for me - but she never spoke them within range of my hearing. Well Jolly Roger you've done it again. Pappy
Hele, I've done that- wanting to dig so deep you get to another place. I think if we hadn't all been stopped in our digging we'd have made it. Children are so determined...
Jaime, we did have lots of adventures, mostly because we spent little time indoors. At least when the weather was decent we were outside. It was always fun.
Texican, not within range- oh, dear.
I'm sure that I've left out a lot of things my brother and I fought about too. Such as, who would own the treasure if we found it... or the fact that he often, when we played hide-and-seek, didn't bother to go looking for me :\ But I won't mention any of those ;)
I never had a name like that until now: tangobaby. And I like it better than my "real" name.
These fanciful names sometimes express better the people we really are, or dream of being.
Tangobaby, I completely agree. Maybe we can be somebody different with our chosen names. They might be a way for us to express ourselves when otherwise we could not.
I should remind my brother that he was Scorpio ;) we should, as it were, dig up our old names and remind ourselves of who we were as children.
i don't remember ever having a name that would stick but as kids we loved to imagine we were looking for hidden treasures by a river not far from where we lived...
Polona, ah, all the hidden treasure of childhood- if all the world's children had found all the treasure we looked for, we'd have all been very very rich :)
I'm sure some of us were on the right track, if only we knew it.
I didn't dig beside a river but that would have been fun too.
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