Memories Monday

It's a summer Sunday and we're going for a walk, the whole family, over the hill and through the grassy field to my school, to play on the playground. I know it's a Sunday because my dad's there too, because I have on my white pique Sunday sundress, the one with the three lilypads and the frog, the one I love so much. I know it's a Sunday because the playground's empty. I'm five or six, I know this because I only attended this school for kindergarten and a few months of first grade.

My sundress swings deliciously, the long grass feels cool against my legs. My brothers chatter and shove each other this way and that and run way ahead, the way they're not supposed to. My mom is walking next to my dad, her head down, not saying anything. I ask her why she always looks down when she's walking. "I'm thinking," she says. "I think better when I'm looking at the ground." I consider this for a while, keeping quiet, looking at the ground as we walk. She's right. You do think better. I decide I'm going to do this too, from now on. It'll be like a secret thing, just us girls.