Picture Perfect

Imani Abdullah

Professor Williams

English 1010-25

15 September 2015                                                                            

                                                                     Picture perfect

It’s not the easiest thing to look back at my childhood for a memorable event. I do not have very many memories that I can recall from when I was younger. I only have fragments of memories like laughing but I don’t know why or running but I don’t know where. There’s one particular day that I can still remember vividly. In the younger years of my life, my mom, my sister and I moved to Memphis. We moved into a small, old, rickety apartment complex called Raleigh Woods.  Even though it wasn’t the nicest place, it would do for what me and my sister, Amber, had planned.  This memory that I am thinking of took place the night before my very first day of kindergarten. I was only 6 at the time. I remember feeling hyper and excited because I was going to officially be starting school. When I think about that night I can still remember how excited I was to take my first school picture. This memory has stayed with me throughout my life. I often think back on this simpler time and the lesson I learned from it.

     In my sub-conscious I remember, as little kids my sister and I were little balls of energy, bouncing from wall to wall.  We loved to play. Hours seemed to pass by when we played our favorite game of hide and seek. The thrill of hiding in dark places, like the cabinets next to my mom’s pots and pans, gave us a rush. There was so much innocence and joy when we were in our play world. There wasn’t anything that we could not do in our minds when we were playing. The things we imagined and did in our tiny room sometimes got out of hand.  Of course, my mom would see us doing something she thought was dangerous and started fussing but, we could not see the harm.  She would yell but, it felt as we didn’t care how much she yelled.  It was like we were on a high that we couldn’t come down from.   She would be yelling and we would continue to horse around in the house.  You could tell in my mother’s voice she was getting agitated with our constant need for action. After many hours of playing she finally convinced us to simmer down into a nice cooling bath filled to the rim with pink bubbles. The pink bubbles would slowly begin to disappear as my mom walked in and said, “listen guys, I will make a deal with you.” “As long as the two of you clean up the mess you created, you can stay up another hour.”  As we dried off we created a plan to ramp the fun back up.  We begin to calmly put on our favorite matching pink La Esmerelda pajamas while planning how to put our plan into motion.

After we got dressed we immediately began to put our toys away.  As we played cops, we tucked our dolls hands behind their back. We slowly but surely put them away in a ruff box with a purple top.  My mom stood guard to make sure we were keeping our end of the deal.  Every now and then my sister and I would giggle, knowing and soon as my mom stepped away the fun would begin. The moment finally came when my mom needed to step away but, before she did we heard her say “no horsing around!”   I could feel my sister getting ready to break out of her good girl act as my mother turned the corner.  As soon as my mother was out of sight my sister began throwing our toys as if they were baseballs.  She threw the first two into the toy box. She wildly threw the third toy that headed straight to my eye!  I heard a loud pop and I yelled.