I Do What I'm Told... Sometimes.

So, part of the reason mom started this thing asking us to post our memories is because I was on the phone with her and told her some things I remembered. So I'll re-tell the stories here.

One was about one time when Alex and I were tasked to clean our room. (It was when we had the room in the basement of Ackroyd). I don't remember too many details but dad was getting annoyed that we weren't cleaning it fast enough (or maybe not at all... who knows. haha.) so he put on a timer and said we better finish it before the time was up... or else. As soon as he put the time on, we thought it was a super fun game and we cleaned our room really fast and finished before the timer. I don't know exactly how this next part went but either we were giggling and told him right away or we asked him to time us again later and I remember him being annoyed about it because he didn't time us so we could have FUN. He times us so we would do what we were asked. Hahahahaha.

Maybe Alex has more insight on that.

Speaking of dad, there's another memory that I often think about. It was at the Des Lilas house. Dad was trying to wake me up for something and I wasn't waking up - but he thought I was awake, so he started counting down. But I was having a dream that I was in a spaceship and we were counting down for blast off. Anyway, when he got to 0, I woke up. And again, he was annoyed at me because he didn't believe that I was asleep and just conveniently woke up when he finished his countdown. Lol.

I always wonder how much of my memories are real. I know they are never 100%. It's literally impossible with the human brain. But who knows how much is actually real?

I guess we can never know.

Brain songs

In fulfilment of mom's wish for us to post about childhood memories, I have something that came to mind today.

As I was working in my kitchen today I began absentmindedly to hum a song from the deeper recesses of my brain. In light of mom's request for our memories, this aroused my thoughts.

I have a whole bunch of songs in my brain of whose titles I am ignorant and of whose lyrics my knowledge is spotty. These are the songs I learned (or partly learned) from hearing mom and dad practising choir pieces from the various choirs they were in over the years.

Today I was singing the one that goes "farewell my friends I'm bound for Canaan...". Fortuitously, we now have Google and I was able to look up those lyrics and find that the song is called "Parting Friends" and then listen to it on Google Music.

I have a few such songs floating around in my brain. There are several ancient hymns and folk songs like Parting Friends, the music from dad's Gift of the Magi musical, and other things I can't think of at the moment. Also, despite my modest abilities in music reading, I happen to be able to sing all the alto parts of church hymns because I had them coming in one ear every week.

  I'm glad we grew up with lots of music. My own ability to create music is limited but I learned a lot by osmosis and have somehow managed to have a basic musical education without having put in any effort.