This week the kids and I went to the library to return books and check out new ones. On the way in, the kids saw an ant-bed overflowing with ants. I didn’t see it until the way out. It was a medium mound of ant dirt in the middle of the sidewalk in a crack of course. Ants numbered as much as the tiny specks of dirt, more with wings than expected, some without.
There was no evidence of a foot disturbing their home, yet the critters moved frantically as if one of my own had jumped on top of their home. As I passed by and called attention to the ant bed, in my mind’s eye, I zoomed into my childhood on the playground.
I elementary-schooled in the 80s, and the playground was not safety friendly. It was fenced in, but within that area, there were trees, rocks, hidden paths, a place for ball (kick ball or baseball), foursquare areas, hot metal slides, giant swings, and of course, ant beds. I thought of the big tree ants on the big tree by the big rock and the ants in my own yard at home. I wondered if my own kids really knew how to play with an ant bed, like in the days of my youth. Step on a bed or kick it just a certain way and you could see into their home and way of life, all while watching the dazzling display of ants come to fight the enemy and not get a single one on your body.
Lately, every now and again, I will see an object that reminds me of the past, taking me on a journey like a portkey. I am suddenly transferred from the present to the past, or I am held in wonder transfixed in-between two times.
This particular day, I wondered if I was raising my kids well. Whether right or wrong, their upbringing is totally different from my own. They know a suburban, moderately wealthy life. By moderately wealthy, I mean the area they live in. I wonder if they see the poverty and poor around them or if they mostly see affluence. I call to them the poverty, but still, they seem to think more of themselves than of others. They haven’t learned to love one another yet. Or maybe they do, but as a mom, it is hard to see it as much as we referee the fights.
As for me, I was a country girl raised smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, close to beat-10, in a five-acre plot of land that was my grandmother’s gifted to my parents. The county was poor. One of only two kids, I had a sister who was six years my younger. I went to a small county school right up until tenth grade (at which point I transferred to a 6A school from my 2A school) and as evidenced by my memory as I homeschooled the past two years, my education wasn’t too shabby despite my humble roots.
I was allowed to keep mostly to myself. Every now and again I got an allowance. Cleaned the upstairs area for company coming over. I had a TV in my room, but seeing as how I lived in the country, I had all of one or two good channels. About 70% of my clothing were made by my granny; the other 20% from Wal-mart, the rest department store, up until I begged for the Guess jeans in middle school.
Though transfixed, daydreaming of my youth, my feet kept carrying me to the van that day at the library. I don’t really know what part my environment played in who I’ve become or the values I hold. Do any of us really know? I don’t know if the environment my kids are in will affect them for the better or for the worse. I drove home and the portkey portal of ant-bed memories closed.
Until later in the week, when the nostalgia returned. My uncle passed away, and I drove down the interstate straight to the rolling foothills I grew up in. The foothills are no longer home to me, and in fact can call to mind painful memories if I go that route. Though I cannot return to the home I grew up in, this time I simply felt the wonder of home in my memory. I didn’t just imagine home, I beheld the beauty of the hills and I was home, a country girl all over again. One day, my kids will be dreaming of creeks in the backyard, swinging in that swing set their daddy made, picking squash in the garden, and fun times with neighbors.
I looked at my husband after all this was over, and though he didn’t travel the portals with me, I said, “Do you think these kids will be all right one day?”
“Yeah, they’re gonna be alright.” he said.
For a moment, I believed.
photo credit: Spikenzie Swarm of ants via photopin (license)
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