A Day in the Life of Chaos

As a child grows older one of the most rapidly changing places in any house is their bedroom.  It is evolution times one hundred.  Toys that once seemed so appropriate are suddenly as out of place as an Avon Lady in coal mine.  While I understand the parent who went crazy and spent a fortune on the pirate ship bed, I pity them as one year merged into the next.  Suddenly the once magical bed no longer seemed quite appropriate as their child's legs surpassed it's length. After numerous requests, and having safely left his urges to have a room with the walls painted black in the rear view mirror, I recently succumbed to my sixteen year old's prostrations for an update.  It was an exercise in compromise.  Despite his urging I refused to allow him to forsake his bed frame and place his mattress on the floor.  To him it seemed "cool," to me it seemed representative of either homelessness or my college years.  I did however let him choose the paint and overall theme.

There are times when I can remember being a child.  I close my eyes and a vivid vision comes to play dancing across the neurotransmitters that record the memories of life.  It can be in the form of a sense, a smell or a touch.  They are good visions, not sad ones.  Recollections of moments of happiness.  The kinds of memories that I dare not contemplate before I sleep because if I do, sleep will never find me. As Christmas rolls around once again I remember the days as if they were yesterday.  My father is unquestionably one of the most talented people I have ever known.  Christmas always seemed like an opportunity for him to put his talents to the test.  There were nights when I would lay in bed waiting for sleep to take me on Christmas Eve and I would hear strange sounds in the house.  I wasn't allowed to investigate so my mind and imagination would just capture my sensibilities. I can remember one Christmas so vividly.  I must have been six, seven or maybe eight years