one childhood memory of mine

So i'm reading Bird by Bird by anne lamott which is a book on writing and other things. i love the author because when i had just had finnie my photographer ex-roomate/friend gave me a book by her called Operating Instructions. It was a journal of her son's first year and i would recommend it to anyone even remotely considering have a child. lamott is self depricating and funny and an ex-alcoholic and completely in tune with her feelings in a way that is womanly-macho and honest as hell. she is able to take feeling like utter shit and completely hopeless and make it entertaining and useful. and i would sit there breastfeeding, in the midst of post-partum depression thinking that finnegan didn't like me, never would love me and that i was going to inevitably fuck him up royally and think...i am not alone. and that was so. very. important right at that very moment. anne lamott is, therefore, forever in my love map.

in bird by bird she says to approach writing like looking at a one inch picture frame. keep it small so that you're not scaling mount everest when you should be taking a stroll on the greenbelt. and she says to write down your childhood memories. here is one of mine that i love to think about. i tell this my way. this is how i remember it. i don't care how truthful it is to someone else. this i believe is my truth about the tarantula. so, back off, mom. this is my blog.

ok here goes:

when i was five my dad found an enormous tarantula in the bathtub. as you can probably guess, he didn't just happen upon it when he was grouting the tile or discover it when he was going to comet the tub, he was sitting on the pot taking a poo. we had just moved in to a house in a community where my grandparents lived, called Ransom Canyon. now, when we visit, the neighborhood looks like any other, houses practically built on top of eachother. a row of houses, a cul-de-sac, a row of houses, a cul-de-sac. but back then ours was one of the only houses on the block. behind us was a field full of mesquite trees and cacti and scrub grass and grasshoppers and obviously, displaced tarantulas.

so, naturally, my dad gave this tarantula a new home in a mason jar. and my brother and i pissed it off and watched it sleep for about three days before my dad decided to give it back to the field from whence it came.

the moment of the tarantula's reentry into the wild is probably one of the most vivid and telling memories i have of my dad from when i was young. i think i felt like i understood him a little better and i now knew why his friends called him jumper when they pitched horseshoes at the lake.
he was standing on the side yard with the mason jar when he opened it very slowly. i was scared the tarantula was going to seek revenge on me for the three days of torment so i ran across the drive way into the big part of the yard and turned around to watch from afar. and at the moment of my turn, i see my dad shake out the mason jar, wait a millisecond and then stick out his leg and flip his foot with a move classic to hacky sack champions the world over. the tarantula was stalled on my dad's reeboks. he wanted to stay with us.

i think my dad knew what my mom would say if the spider didn't return back to his natural place so he lowered his foot, let the tarantula walk off and hung his head and waved goodbye. we met on the driveway and recounted the tale with my brother who i'm sure was watching too. i just remember my dad.

so there. a one inch picture of my five year old life. that was fun.