Ugly Building Memory

This morning I walked up the hill to the nearby bakery, Flour Power. It is a fantastic bakery, making lots of organic bread and little meatpies (Australian specialty) and croissants and doughnuts. I bought a loaf of sourdough bread and a croissant and walked to the park nearby, which has a nice view overlooking much of the city. I passed an apartment building on the way to the park, standing tall above all the houses around it. It has a square, seventies style, with ugly orange and blue squares decorating the exterior, and an observation deck on the top that makes it look almost like an air traffic control tower. I like the building. It makes me feel nostalgic, and I have never known why, but today a memory popped in my head that put the feeling into place.

As a child, from the age of 10 until I went to college, I used to spend 2 to 4 weeks in New York City with my Aunt and Uncle during summer vacation. They were amazing to us, my brother and I, and sometimes some other cousins would come visit too. They took us with them to work, took us to museums and theatre and restaurants all over the city. And sometimes we would spend the day with friends of theirs. I remember quite a few times going to spend the day with the kids of their friends, but at the aunt's place of the kids. The aunt lived in a high-rise near Rockaway Beach, and the hi-rises near Rockaway looked similar to the building I walked by this morning.

The aunt was very fat, and didn't seem very friendly, but in retrospect she must have been nice - she let my brother and I, who she didn't know, spend the day with her and her grand nieces and feed us. We would spend the whole day in the pool, as the ocean roared just on the other side of the fence. I loved it. I loved pools. I still love pools. The aunt would call us in from her deck to have lunch. She would make ham sandwiches with mayonnaise, and cokes. At that age, I didn't like mayonnaise, but I would eat it and not say anything.

Sometimes I remember things and feel sad and wish some things never happened, or wish that I had been a better girl when I was little, and other times I remember things and just feel so lucky that I had this or that experience, or that I had certain people in my life. I remember my aunt and uncle and another aunt of mine and her son and their circle of friends and just feel so lucky that they were in my life. They were so willing to take me on for weeks or months, and make me a part of their lives, and have fun.

Do people do that so much these days? Do you bring along the 11 year old niece of your friend to a dinner party, or to the pool of your aunt? Are people still that communal? Do people still view kids in such an easy way? I feel like when I spent those summers in NYC I was surrounded by adults who seemed to enjoy my company, and were happy to have me along anywhere. I don't know if that was true, but I never felt differently. It is no wonder I dreamed of living in New York for most of my childhood.

Occasionally, I get to spend time with friends and their children. Truthfully, I am awkward with some kids. They are shy, and I respect their distance. I don't know what to say to toddlers because I hate talking down or saying something insincere. But with other kids, I thoroughly enjoy talking to them, and I am thoroughly entertained by them. I would like to think that I would be able to say to a friend, sure, I'll have your kid stay with me for a week, and it would be easy. I don't know.

Things are different now. I don't think it is so acceptable now for kids to do what we did. Sometimes we would run around the city on our own and meet my aunt for lunch and at the end of the day. We also took the bus between NYC and NH on our own. One time I remember sitting in the back of the bus with my brother, and a guy talked to us all the way to Hartford, telling us about how he got beat up and mugged. He was drunk, and I didn't know what mugged meant, but I knew it wasn't good.

When I was 10 I also remember going to see a musical called "One Mo' Time" at the Village Vanguard. I didn't always follow the story, or the sexual innuendos, but I loved the music. After the show my aunt and uncle let us stay after and wait for the actors to come out and mingle in the club. I walked around to all of them and got their autographs. I was so excited!

Brisbane is such a small town by comparison to New York, and I wouldn't let a couple of 13 year olds run around here. But I don't know why they would want to run around here anyway. There isn't much to see. Well, maybe there is for a 13 year old; I don't know. I think I was spoiled having NYC as my summer camp. And I was spoiled having this cool group of adults taking care of me.