When I was small I used to pull myself along the floor like a salamander. No. Not when I was that small. When I was six or seven years old. After I got put to bed I would sneak back down the hall into my parents’ room by lying down on the floor and pulling myself along by the shag carpeting. Arms fully outstretched, belly slung low, I would grab the fluffy grey-green hair of carpet and pull while simultaneously pushing with my feet. Little back fins. Sometimes I would sidle along all the way through their room into the living room until I could just see the television in the den through the french doors.
It is in this way that I became a connoisseur of Fantasy Island, even though it was past my bedtime. My bedtime, if I were extremely lucky or just pretty darn good (which I usually was) was immediately post-The Love Boat. Perhaps here lies the seed of my lifelong love of travel and my dreams of tropical island living. Who knows. Perhaps if I’d been allowed to stay up and watch Fantasy Island in more than a prone position I would have been to Hawaii by now.
Once, I got caught. There I was, nestled down deep in the shag, contently watching the beginning of Fantasy Island when SWOOP! I was air-lifted by the ankles upside down, swinging through the room half-laughing, half-crying. Busted. “Nnoooooo….I screamed……The Plane!!! The Plane!!!” It was a pretty dead-on impersonation of little Tattoo announcing the arrival of the passengers at the beginning of the show, which elicited quite a snort from my parents, but to no avail. Still hanging by the ankles, I was carried through the short hallway to my room and dumped back into my bed with a somewhat snickering admonition to stay there.
And stay there I did. Snuggled down in my bed under the streetlight’s glow on the Hardy Boys poster I kissed each night before sleeping, I would imagine the passengers’ adventures on Fantasy Island. Each of them stepping down off the plane in her deep v-neck silk blouses and wide brim hats and his crisp linen suits. And as I lie there slowly falling to sleep I would craft for myself their stories, the six-year-old version of their vacations. Perhaps here lies the seed of this very blog and all the hundreds of pages of stories and poems already written and those yet to come.
But back to the shag carpet. It was not really always about watching more TV past my bedtime. It was about the not missing something. About the companionship of sitting in the room with my parents. It was about the not-being-aloneness that would encourage me to slither along the floor, silent, until I was almost underneath the foot of my parents’ bed. Content most times just to lie there and listen to my mom turning pages until she fell asleep. Content just to hear them both breathing.
1 Comment
June 30, 2008 at 10:19 am
i can so picture this…you crawling, being lifted up into the air…fantasy island and all that it entailed in the mind of a young one. and, the actual mind of a young one. nice!
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