This is a post to probably won’t interest a lot of my readers because it’s personal. It’s about memories to come floating forward in the quiet of morning twilight, that time between dawn and sunrise. Have you ever had those?

I have had a bunch of those memories surface recently. This morning I remembered clearly what it was like looking outside my first bedroom window as a really little girl. My parents’ house was a construction site for much of the time we lived in Society Hill because it was such a wreck when they bought it. I used to look out the window which was in the rear of what today you would call the “master suite”.

My sister was still in her crib, and I was in this little room off the bathroom that would eventually become something like a dressing room. I remember clearly looking out the window at night and even in the morning. I would see the roofs of Bell’s Court and into St. Joseph’s Way and beyond. I also remember looking out that window at night at all the twinkling lights in the house is behind us. I remember wondering what all the people in those houses were like, what they were doing.

I had a memory not too long ago of singing songs from the Beatles’ Songbook on the front steps with a babysitter. It was fun. Only my mother didn’t approve. I remember her telling my babysitter not to do that because she didn’t want to have a kid sitting on the front stoop. She didn’t care if we did something like that out in the backyard but she never wanted us sitting on the front steps for some reason.

Another random memory is getting pushed off a high bar of the jungle gym in the St. Peter’s playground. The girl who did it said it was “an accident“ but it wasn’t. She was sort of a frenemy back then. I remember hitting the ground and the wind got knocked out of me. I never much liked the jungle gym after that.

I also remember what it was that made my parents and a friend’s parents want to leave the city. My friend and I were riding bikes in Bingham Court which was some thing we used to do often. If we weren’t riding bikes we were rollerskating. What made the parents decide on suburbia was the day we got mugged riding bikes. We didn’t really have anything worth stealing so what they did was smash my friend’s glasses into her face.

But that was like a defining moment in the lives of two families. Up until that point we often used to roam around and ride bikes by ourselves. We were like 10 or 11.

Other memories that have come back in these weird in between hours was like the memory of discovering an old quarry with a friend. It was in Gladwyne. I’m sure it’s still there unless someone filled it in, and could they even do that? It was down this sort of a dirt road off of a kind of a gravel driveway that was long and windy.

When you came upon the quarry it was cool and quiet except for the sound of birds. There were woods and scrub trees growing up top on the far side of the quarry and around the other sides of the quarry. We never went swimming or anything in the quarry, we just hung out. It was was a cool place.

Other memories from that year in Gladwyne was the was the clop, clop, clop of horses’ hooves on the road. A lot of people still kept horses in Gladwyne back then. It’s where I learned to ride. That sound is still sort of magical to me. Sometimes I would even wake up to that sound because Mr. Gwinn’s was across the road and other people kept horses down the road. The sound of horse is going by like that is very soothing.

I don’t know what the point of these memories floating free but it’s so different then the way we are today, isn’t it? Kids just wandered. Everyone was ok. Essentially when we could be outside, we were outside. We weren’t inside watching TV or playing video games or doing stuff on our tablets or phones.

When I fully wake up, the former child I once was is gone and the adult is back. I am in our bedroom in our house. I get up and I look out the window into the woods. Yes, I still like looking out the window even at almost 56. I really love the view we are blessed to have. It’s just beautiful. And every day I hear birds.

Appreciate your day. And your life. Thanks for stopping by.