Alexandra Bradford

                                    (I took this picture today, 8/23/14; the yellow door is new.)

           

           When I was three years old, my parents, older sister, and I made the move from Columbia, Missouri to Norman, Oklahoma. My dad had accepted an offer to teach ancient Greek history at the University of Oklahoma, and my mom also became a  professor teaching art to non-majors. My sister, ten years old, had already moved a few times (and would move yet again three years down the road) and was not happy about Oklahoma. I was at the age when memories form as raw bits of images, feelings, and thoughts, which is how I remember my time from age three to six at this humble brown ranch-style house, which we call the Trenton house.

            My impressions of this building utilize all the senses; the smell of my mom’s colored pencils and the sound of her pencil sharpener in the nook by the car port, the petrifying taste of skim milk (I thought it was “skin” milk), my dad’s red expression of anger and frustration when I wouldn’t drink it, and the frayed texture of the aged flattened carpet I played on are a few remembrances. My time here captured a 360 degree picture of childhood with all its colors, wonder, and fresh sensation. Those three years were like a rolling wheel, leaving stamps of varying emotions and experiences from debilitating and traumatic to poignant and joyous.

            The reasons I chose this building for my blog are one, simply because it was the first place I thought of, and it seemed to jump out at me; two, the time I spent there is enough to draw from throughout the semester and seems ripe for the picking; and three, my outlook on my past seems to be shifting from something like repressive to accepting (which I am loving). What better time is there to dig into the past and write about this particular location?