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Four years
Sep. 24th, 2012 11:50 pm...and I'm still finding memories hiding in random places.
We can see part of the Showgrounds from our house: just the tops of the rides, and a few bright lights each September. Tonight I watched the fireworks out my window, and remembered the first time I saw and heard a firework show.
It must have been years ago - before the Quayside centre was built in Frankston, back when the current shopping sprawl was just a carpark. Standing in the dark, part of a crowd that had gathered to see the fireworks that night. Bethany was very little, riding on Dad's shoulders. I can't have been much bigger, but I remember standing there fascinated by the colours and patterns each firework made. Mum stood on the other side of me, probably making sure I didn't wander off, or walk into something while I stared at the sky. It's a nice memory to fix in my mind: all together in one place, attention fixed on one thing.
The colours of those fireworks stuck with me for years. Even back then, I wanted to know how everything worked, and some of my first non-dinosaur books were about chemistry. Not long after that, Dad started bringing home bags of aluminium cans from the restaurant, so that we could crush them down and take them to sell back to the recycling centre. We saved the coins in an old money box on the bookshelf, planning to buy a chemistry set with it. Time passed, catalogues of new distractions came and went, and the money was spent on other things - but the spark remained. Then years of uni and work ground it out of me, until I remembered about it tonight.
I don't need to rush out and find myself a chemistry set any more. Years of lab work have let me play with just about everything that you can burn, boil or separate, and I think I left the research science path a long time ago. I'll keep those memories though. Family, wonder and curiosity are all important things to hold onto, in whatever way you can.
We can see part of the Showgrounds from our house: just the tops of the rides, and a few bright lights each September. Tonight I watched the fireworks out my window, and remembered the first time I saw and heard a firework show.
It must have been years ago - before the Quayside centre was built in Frankston, back when the current shopping sprawl was just a carpark. Standing in the dark, part of a crowd that had gathered to see the fireworks that night. Bethany was very little, riding on Dad's shoulders. I can't have been much bigger, but I remember standing there fascinated by the colours and patterns each firework made. Mum stood on the other side of me, probably making sure I didn't wander off, or walk into something while I stared at the sky. It's a nice memory to fix in my mind: all together in one place, attention fixed on one thing.
The colours of those fireworks stuck with me for years. Even back then, I wanted to know how everything worked, and some of my first non-dinosaur books were about chemistry. Not long after that, Dad started bringing home bags of aluminium cans from the restaurant, so that we could crush them down and take them to sell back to the recycling centre. We saved the coins in an old money box on the bookshelf, planning to buy a chemistry set with it. Time passed, catalogues of new distractions came and went, and the money was spent on other things - but the spark remained. Then years of uni and work ground it out of me, until I remembered about it tonight.
I don't need to rush out and find myself a chemistry set any more. Years of lab work have let me play with just about everything that you can burn, boil or separate, and I think I left the research science path a long time ago. I'll keep those memories though. Family, wonder and curiosity are all important things to hold onto, in whatever way you can.
