I was lying in my bed, waiting for sleep to take over when the air conditioner kicked on.  I felt the familiar cool air hit my face and I was taken back by the scent of the cool fresh air.  Literally taken back in time, at least twenty years.  Andrea and I were laying side by side.  Her right in front of the air vent in her bedroom, and me beside her hoping to catch some of the cool breeze from my spot in the doorway.

We were probably lucky to have air conditioning in our old farm house, but the cool air never seemed to last much further than that small area surrounding the vent.  It had become our summer routine.  For some reason, lying next to Andrea and sharing the cool breeze was more appealing than the vent in my own room.

From there my mind raced with summer memories of swim suit fashion shows in the backyard, turning a worn out water bed mattress into a slip’n’slide down the cellar hill and finding my place of solitude when I realized that I was the only one who had figured out a way to climb onto the LP tank and sit there in silence, enjoying the summer air.

Andrea and I would ride our bikes up and down the driveway all day long.  Up the driveway, turn around at the mailbox.  Down the driveway, around the big mud puddle in front of the barn and back up.  When I was feeling defiant, I would ride up the “wrong” side of the driveway and Andrea would freak out.  It was great. Then it occurred to me, Thea must get it from me…the pleasure that she feels when she is able to irritate her sister to no end by just making a tiny mark in her sidewalk art.

Oh the memories…so I got up out of my bed tonight thinking about the essays I have written about my childhood.  There are several.  Non Fiction Writing was my favorite class in college, and they let you take it as many times as you wanted.

I located two essays.  One about my Grandma Dalene and one about my sisters.  I am considering posting them here, but that may just be my sleep deprived mind jumping places that I don’t really want to go.  We shall see.  In the meantime, I am going to go back to bed and wait for that nostalgic smell of air conditioning to hoist me off to sleep.