memories Archives - Donna Galanti - Where heart and hope meet adventure!

Middle Grade Rewind: A Day in My Life at 9

As middle grade writers, we find joy in putting ourselves into the young characters we write about. One way I love to do this is re-visit pictures of myself as a kid.

I stare at them, sifting through specific memories connected to that photo. What was I excited about? What did I most want? What made me sad? What made me happy? What was my biggest worry?

Then I journal in that moment, bringing in all the details on the edge of that photo and just out of reach. Often the details outside the picture are the ones that tell the story of that photo. I did this recently with this photo.

Bethel Woods Campground, Holderness, New Hampshire, 1978

Bethel Woods Campground, 1978

Every day I dream about getting my first dog. I imagine she is so real that when I come home from school I run to meet her (her name will be Beauty after Black Beauty). But not yet…so while I wait, I keep busy roaming the campground we own.

It’s fun to wear my strap-on roller skates and hunt the woods for dead butterflies and shotgun shells. They make cool noise makers when you put them in old coffee cans.

I’m lucky because there are always kids here to play with and swim with at the pool (awesome for an only child like me!).

I especially love to hang out in the recreation hall and play pinball machines and records on the juke box. My favorite song is Escape by Rupert Holmes. I asked Dad what a Pina Colada is and he said it’s like a party in a glass for grownups.

Each morning as I pick rotten apples in the orchard to feed our fat hogs, I get to pretend I’m my favorite hero, Laura Ingalls from Little House in the Big Woods. Mom says we’ll even be butchering the hogs soon – just like Laura did!

Mom wants to make head cheese Like Mrs. Ingalls did (ewww!) but I want to blow up the pig’s bladder like a balloon and roast its tail over the fire, just like Laura did. Little House on the Prairie is my favorite show and sometimes I even pretend that Mr. Ingalls is my dad.

After hog feeding time, I get to gather the eggs in the chicken coop. Today I found a double yolk egg without a shell. It was see-through and wobbly just like a Weeble. Although, I think it would fall down if I wobbled it.

Tomorrow is dump day. I get to collect the trash with Dad from all the campsites (we even saw a bear last week!). It’s a totally smelly chore but the best part is that I get to stand up in the back of our 1965 Ford truck and hang onto the wood sides as we cruise to the dump. Wheeee! It’s almost as fun as snowmobiling on the camp trails in winter.

If I help Dad out good, he even promised to take me fishing on Squam Lake this weekend to use my new tackle box. I caught my first pike there last month. Dad almost crashed the boat up on the rocks just so I could reel it in!

Heading out fishing with Dad and friends, in his Boston Whaler

Oh, and there’s a big thunderstorm coming tonight so I plan to sleep on the screened-in porch and watch the lightning all night long (just don’t tell Mom, okay?). Well, time to go practice my after-dinner show for Mom and Dad. I’m singing and dancing to The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers and On The Good Ship Lollipop on my record player. I even made my own sailor and Tigger costumes (I’m a blue fuzzy Tigger in my one-piece footed pj’s, Dad’s striped tie for a tail, and Mom’s wig).

Being nine is the best. Getting a dog would make it even better.

Me and Beauty’s son, Windsor. I got to pick him out from her litter.

Christmas past lives on in the present – and you

By Donna Galanti

The old Westerlo, NY, homestead

Christmas is here again. A blend of old memories from Christmases past and new ones being made.

It took a long time for me to feel at peace with the Christmas celebration changes of the last few years as our lives changed. Suddenly, the steady Christmases of my childhood and youth were gone. My parents sold the Upstate New York country home I grew up in and moved south. I no longer could “go home” for Christmas and see all my childhood friends. I got married and moved away. We had a child. New people were in my life now. And things kept changing. Christmas left me with an uncomfortable feeling then, one of constant change and uncertainty. It made me sad. I wanted to skip over it.

My parents oh-so-trendy Christmas outfits!

For a long time, the loss of my childhood Christmases hung heavy on me. My mother once said she didn’t have Christmases growing up during the Depression. I do believe she made up for that later in life by lovingly decorating and entertaining with grace and warmth. And I had always envisioned bringing my husband and son “home” to that warmth for Christmas. But that would never be. Especially since my mother died.

But then I discovered as my son became older, that I finally accepted the change because it won’t ever go away. Change goes on and on. And as I embrace my memories now, I realize no one can take them away. Now is the time to look forward and enjoy creating those special Christmas memories for my son. He is the next generation, and I am the past. What he remembers now will be part of him forever. Just as I remember.

Recently, I took my son to Upstate New York the week after Christmas to visit friends. On our way home we wound up the Helderberg Mountains to drive by my old homestead. The once showcase home now stands worn, overgrown, and abandoned-looking by homeowners without a care.

But that’s not what I see.

I see glittery, snow-covered fields as I climb the last hill home. Lights burn soft, falling on snow from the farmhouse windows. Smoke curls from the chimney as I pull into the stone driveway and park in the barn. I pass holly and bows strung on the lamp posts welcoming me home.

Christmas when I was 4. Loved my stuffed Tom Kitten from Beatrix Potter!

And as I knock the snow from my boots upon entering, the smell of mincemeat pie, rib roast, and Yorkshire pudding float around my head in a delicious wreath. I see my mother in an apron ready with a big hug, a glass of wine, and a loud “Hello!” I see the tree with decorations of decades twinkle a soft sentimental greeting. The fire pops while candles flicker a peaceful glow.

And there out the bay window over the pond, I see the North Star rise in greeting over the hills spread out before us. The hills I once sled down on Christmas Eves gone by. I can still breathe in the crisp stillness that spread over the fields under the moon in a humble sleep. I watch the flip of a beaver tail as he swims under the frozen-over creek on the way to his dam. I see fireplaces blazing at each end of the house and a table filled high with food as laughs and hugs abound. I see folks gather round the center hall piano to sing lively tunes with eggnog in hand.

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Me and Josh Christmas morning!

I see it all.

Memories of Christmases past live on in me. Christmas is now about creating memories for my son, for our family. My memories will always shine inside me. And now my son’s memories will live on through me.

What sort of Christmas memories live on in you?

Josh reveling in the first snow!

#ThrowbackThursday: A Childhood Story + Fave Books

By Donna Galanti

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Bethel Woods Campground, NH, 1978

I took a spontaneous book research trip last fall to travel back in time to the New Hampshire campground my parents owned and operated nearly 40 years ago.

You can read about that here.

I resurrected an old manuscript rich with one of my childhood settings. It prompted me to go back in time to the campground my parents owned and operated in New Hampshire. When I drove up, I was zapped back to the 1970s.

Suddenly, I was nine-years-old again. I swam in the pool, fished with my dad, romped through the woods, collected dead butterflies and shotgun shells, whizzed about on strap-on roller skates, played pinball machines, and spun 45 records on the jukebox.

Returning was an emotional gut punch. I could be a child again in that place of innocence but just as it resurrected joyous moments from childhood, it also brought back painful ones and prompted this short piece from a harsh memory.

Holderness, NH, 1978, Winter

Thwonk!

A flash of pain wacked my chest. Ice balls hurt!
“Go somewhere else, fat and ugly,” Tommy said, snickering with his older brother, Brian.
“No, it’s my bus stop too,” I said as another ice ball slammed into my arm.
And another. They double teamed me.
Hurry up bus! But no yellow flashed around the corner, only the endless white spread everywhere.
They’d tied me up yesterday. It’d been for fun (I thought). It must be cool to have brothers to play with, so I let them. The rope had scratched and then bit into me as Tommy pulled tighter.
“Double knot it,” Brian said.
Tommy nodded with a laugh and jerked it harder against my wrists to the chair.
“Ow!” I yelled, kicking the edge of my chair. It wobbled but didn’t break.
“Just sit still.” Brian gave me a dirty look so I did.
Musty bits of dust fluttered up from around old chains and tires and shovels, making me sneeze out a big cloud of frosty air.
“Okay,” Tommy said. He and Brian smiled at each other. “We’ll be right back.”
I nodded. And waited. My fingers grew numb. The cold seeped through my red mittens. The light slanted across the one smeared window in the shed.
A snowplow swooshed by at the bottom of the hill.
“Hey,” I called, not wanting to sound scared. But I was.
I wiggled my wrists. The rope sawed against them. The light grew dim. I wiggled more. When were they coming back? It was a game. That’s all. But there was no stopping the tears that burst forth. No way would I let them catch me crying.
I yanked my wrists as hard as I could. Cramped my fingers to untie the knot. The last light slipped away. Shadows reached for me. I ripped the rope away and ran home. Aha! Wait until they come back. They meant to come back, right?
I told my mother what happened as she turned my bleeding, raw wrists around. No big deal. But the fire in her eyes told me otherwise as she ran next door.
Now here I was today, facing my enemy.
Thwonk!
“Fat and ugly!”
Their laughter shot loud through the crisp air. I scooped up ice and snow, packed it down, and winged it right in Tommy’s face.
“Hey!” He yelled with surprise.
Red streaks cut across his cheek.
Thwonk! Thwonk! They pelted me. I turned and ran.
“Come back!”
But I didn’t. I ran to my special place as fast my chubby legs let me in my snow pants.
Swish swish.
I was the only sound in the forest. I spread out in the snow under a pine tree and let the silence fill me up. How long could I stay here? All day? If I did would I disappear?
From down the hill the school bus braked and shuddered then pulled away.
Snow fell soft like butterflies, melting on my nose.
I made a snow angel and looked up at the sky from my wings.
My body soon betrayed me.
Shivering, I tromped home.
I hoped the fire in my mother’s eyes would be the good kind.

Squam Lake, Holderness, NH where I caught my first fish

What did this trip back in time deliver?
*The vivid feelings of childhood – the good and the bad – to enrich my writing.
*A chance to revisit my creative foundations that gifted me with the yearning to write again.
*The inspiration of a majestic setting to fill my soul.
*The connection from childhood to adulthood – and how the paths we travel drive who we are.
*As a parent now, an appreciation for my parents and their challenges of running a business and raising a child.
*That I write to understand and feel so not alone.
*Through writing I can find meaning in my past and face the future with peace.
*Remembered what I am in my heart: a storyteller.

This visit filled me with a jumble of emotions all tied up with a childhood bow, reflecting splintered sunshine through broken panes.

In writing this piece I realized that I am also drawn to books that revolve around kids experiencing challenging times. Here are some of my favorites books that involve kid heroes:
Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Holes by Louis Sachar
Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer
Surviving Bear Island by Paul Greci (my review – love this book soooo much!)
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandi Nelson
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
Sparrow Road by Sheila O’Connor
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Read my reviews of these and more books on Goodreads

Have you ever taken a trip into the past to follow creative inspiration? What did you find?