Baby girl (6 years young)
When I was 6 years old, we only had one car so we would drop my dad at work. During the summer Instead of going all the way back home to Decatur from Camp Creek my mom and I would go to Barnes and Noble in the Camp Creek shopping center. As soon as I walked into the store the smell of coffee and fresh, new books hit my nose. I really really loved that smell it would always remind me of all the times my mom and I would hangout in the store.
My first stop in the store would always be the children’s section. It would always be decorated with bean bags and colorful painting from children’s books like Alice in Wonderland, which was my favorite at the time. I would listen to the storytellers while I would zoomed down Thomas the Trains extended wooden track. Every time I ventured through the store my mom would let me pick out one thing that I would later get for the next big holiday.
A year or so later, just like any 7 year old I wanted to have a new experience in the bookstore. I thought I was much too grown for the children’s section so I started looking at some of the other sections. I first went to the mysteries/thrillers where I soon found out that I didn’t understand “grown up talk” within the book. I questioned my mother about one specific book where the characters exchanged “sexual glances.” Not understanding what this was I used it in a sentence with my mother. With wide eyes and mouth open my mother looked at me then started laughing. She then explained that I probably shouldn’t be reading that book. I didn’t I understand why until I learned the meaning of a couple of years later.
Sadly, we stopped going to the store as often. Eventually we just stopped going altogether. A couple of years later when I was 14, my mother and I made it back over into the shopping center, excited to go back to the place where I had made so many wonderful memories. My excitement soon depleted when I found out that the Barnes and Noble I had loved so dearly closed down. A place where I learned so much just from a page in a book was forever gone. In my sadness I was happy that I was able to have such an amazing place. As I looked at the store as I reminisced on the love I had for that store, the smell of fresh books and coffee drifted through my sensory memories once again.
BABY GIRL (REFLECTS ON PAST)