My Life Every Five Years

Last month, Molly offered her "five year meme" on her blog and encouraged others to do the same. Memories from one's life every five years counting back from 2007. Here is mine.

1977
I was two years old. I don't remember much except for the scent of lilacs, the rays of the sun warming my face as I dangled my toes in the ice cold creek. We lived on the homestead in Clearwater where I ate the rhubarb pie and zucchini bread my mom would make from her plentiful garden.

1982
I was seven. My best friend Codie and I were at Lake Eleanor every day in the summer, "tiger-tiger" ice cream dripping down our hands as we walked the short walk to the beach. I remember picking these little furry red and orange flowers along the side of the road and bringing them home to my mom. For my Brownie troop, we had to sell cookies door to door and I remember running around town trying to convince old ladies to buy the vanilla and chocolate sandwich cookies.

1987
Now I'm 12. I'm very self concious but feel best in my favorite pink and white striped shirt. The best day is when we square dance in gym and I get to be partners with the heart-throb of our grade 7 class. My class and I went on a trip to Vancouver to stay at the UBC campus for a night. Amber and I giggled through the entire night, so giddy to spend a night alone in the dorm. In the morning, we showered in the communal locker room and as I stood under the running water, I thought life could not get any better than this.

1992
17. One more year of highschool. My boyfriend Mike was probably the worst student body president Esquimalt High had ever seen. I sang in the school vocal jazz group and did terribly in a competition in Vancouver. I painted a fantastic wooden chair with bright red and yellow flowers in art class that I still use to this day. I had a lot of laughs and went night swimming in the Lake Thetis.

1997
I was 22. I had just returned from an archaeological dig in Jordan and had decided to move to Seattle to go to art school. Immediately I met Siah who was a sparkly beautiful girl who's first observation of me was "Oh, so you're Aspen! The guidance councellor kept calling me your name so I think we were meant to meet." We never left each others' side. With her I learned to wear glitter on my cheeks during the day, beat the boys off with large sticks and dance long through the night and into the wee hours of the morning. I remember the day Princess Diana died as we were driving home at 7am from my first rave when we heard it on the radio. We had a moment of silence before drifting off into a blissful much needed sleep in the back seat of the car.

2002

I was 27. Jeremy and I had just recently bought our first house and we were starting to populate the place...with animals! And birds. That spring we bought 8 cute, fuzzy yellow chicks. They lived in a cardboard box topped with a heat lamp and lined with wood shavings until their little pin feathers came in. We built them a cozy coop out back where they each layed one egg everyday (that's 8 eggs a day!). They were allowed to run free in the yard when we were home and at night we had to chase them back into the coop. They are fast and furious little things and not easy to corral. A few of them would let us pick them up and "snuggle" and pet them once in a while.

2007

Now I'm 31. My lovely little boy just turned one and we live in a stunning coastal Californian town. Today Elliot and I dug in the dirt in order to prepare the soil for a vegetable garden. We love to sit in the cool freshly dug soil and wiggle our fingers and toes, not caring about the dirt in our pants (and ears and eyes and shoes). Elliot only ate one mouthful of dirt and no worms. It's a record!

As those before me have said, I now tag any and all of you to do your own. I would love to read them all!!