Flashback

I mentioned yesterday that it’s been really hot lately, and it hasn’t gotten better.

In fact, last night was still so hot that I decided to sleep on the couch in the living room so I could take advantage of the air conditioning. I plan on doing that any night it’s too hot to sleep in the bedroom, because I’m too cheap to buy a second air conditioner for the bedroom. Plus I just don’t see the point because it’s not that big of an inconvenience to sleep on the sofa.

But I was faced with a new challenge. Kevin gets here later tonight and is staying with me until he leaves for Asia on the 21st.

Well, two people can’t fit on my sofa, and I’m not going to be a rude host and force him to sleep in the sauna of a bedroom. So my only option, really, was to move my mattress from the bed and plop it down in the middle of the living room. Sure, I could just buy an air mattress, but really, where’s the fun in that?

So, I moved my chair out the way and shoved the coffee table aside. Once I had made enough room for the mattress, I dragged it into the living room and put all of the sheets on it.

I feel like I’m camping out kind of. Kind of like when I was a kid and I would get a sleeping bag and then take a blanket and drape it over chairs and things to make it like a tent. I would totally make a tent now too, but I feel like that may be going a bit too far.

But knowing that I am going to be camping out in the living room tonight gives me a flashback to when I was really young. Circa ages 10 and younger. My mom, sister and I lived in a two-story house and only had air conditioning in one room. She was a single mom who was raising three kids (my older brother had graduated and moved out by this time though), so we couldn’t really afford to have air conditioning in every room of the house. During the summers it would get really hot, so we would spend the entire summer camping out in the den each night.

We would pull out the sofa bed and Mom and I would sleep on that while Jan slept on the floor at the foot of the bed. We would have snacks, usually ice cream or pop corn. And we would watch old black and white television shows before actually going to bed. I remember loving Andy Griffith and Ozzie and Harriet and I Love Lucy. I think I really started to develop a true appreciation for classic comedy from those nights. Those were some really terrific shows.

There was one night where something really bizarre happened though. Now, I have to take my mom’s word on this, as she was the only witness, but I have no reason to doubt her.

She claims that one night, in the middle of the night, I started talking in my sleep. To my sister. And even weirder, she was also asleep and yet she talked back. Apparently I was telling her to “come up here and get this bird.” And we were just talking back and forth about some bird that I was convinced was up in the sofa bed with me. Of course neither she or I remember this as we were asleep, but I like to believe it’s true.

You know, I never realized until actually not that long ago that the whole reason behind the summer campouts was because we didn’t have a lot of money. I just thought it was fun. I didn’t know things like shame back then. I reminisced about these nights with Mom a few months ago, and she told me how she always used to be so embarrassed that we had to do that. It made me sad. It’s a memory I hold very dear, and now that I am old enough to fully understand the situation, it just demonstrates to me how great my mother is. How incredible she always was at never letting me know how bad things were at times. She was always able to turn the lemons into lemonade.

It may be a memory that she’s ashamed of, but I will always hold it dear to me. And tonight, while I camp out in front of the air conditioner in the living room, I will reflect on those nights once again… remembering where I came from and thinking about where I’m yet to go.