Childhood memories

My childhood still stands as a very clear picture to me and I often find myself remembering, if I sense the smell of freshly cut grass maybe. Freshly cut grass reminds me of my father in the garden a warm summer evening and he is in his work clothes and with day-old stubbles. I myself am 8 years old and just put to bed. But who can sleep after a long wonderful summer day where the only limitations we experience is lack of imagination. Who can sleep when the sound of the lawnmower bussing at 5 minute intervals past your window and all you want to do, is to jump out of bed and run out onto the newly cut grass with bare feet and feel the evening dew lying on the grass. And then I do, and my excuse to my mother is that I have not said goodnight to my father. I clearly remember her face when she looks at my feet and I run away in bare feet instead of putting on my sandals. Now she's finally got me clean from top to toe; you can't go to bed with your feet dirty. But I do not care and feel perhaps a slight rebelious, when I run through the grass. Who cares about having complete clean feet, when it is summer? They'll get just as dirty again the next day.I run through the grass and feel the soft ground beneath my feet. It is quite cold, even though the sun has baked all day. At the back of the garden, I can see that my father has put out the sprinklers to water the veggies. Oh, who, however, just might be allowed to run one last time through it before you are put back under the overly warm blanket.  

I run down to my father and jump into his arms. There is a sweet smell of sweat, gasoline and grass around him and and I can feel his stubbles on my cheeks, as he gives me a goodnight kiss. He throws me over his shoulder and I know he has thus decided that today he is the peasant husband and I am a sack of potatoes, which must be put in place indoor with the woman. The woman in this case, my mother and the place is back in my bed. But it's really quite ok, because I got my five-minute experience of freedom, when I ran out and said goodnight. A ritual my dad and I had almost every evening throughout the summer of my eighth year. A memory stored so well in my heart, that every spring when the grass is cut for the first time, I feel like that eight-year-old girl. A time where what hurt the most was to be put to bed a hot summer night.