The Environmental and Cultural Memories of My Childhood
Environmental Autobiography (The environmental autobiography is a tool designed to explore the history and development of our own relationships with places.) Start from when I was really young, before 5 years old. I used to like sleeping in the closet before I was too big to stay there for too long. Sometimes, my mom went to work and locked me in the big home.
The closet was a really warm place in the winter. As I was not a brave kid, I found the closet a really nice and safe space to be by myself. When I got older I went to the big garden downstairs the apartment i lived to play with other kids. It was a rectangular garden between the two residential buildings. Children from nearby places would all come here to play. Some retired old people worked here almost everyday. These grandmas and grandpas would plant trees, plant flowers, some also plant vegetables and fruits. Our neighbor is an elderly couple, and they were really fond of planting tomatoes. I ate a lot of their gift tomatoes.
Another day, people just decided to get away with the garden and replace it with another residential building. At the first floor of the building, there is a supermarket. Another thing that goes away with the garden are the cabbages in the autumn. People in the old times tend to buy a lot of cabbages, processed or stored directly to prepare for winter eating. This practice in the Northeast regional culture is because of the long winter snow days. As times changed, and now the storing folk customs are gradually changing due to technologies. So the days with the gardens and cabbages only belong to the past now.
And after that, people decided to make the road in front of my elementary school wider. I think it was smart for the city planners to make a road wider than needed at the very beginning, but they forgot to paint a zebra crossing. So walking across the road to go to school from home became a really terrified thing for me, as I never seen road that was this wide. I had shorter legs when I was a kid so I had to run. One day I was hit by a bicycle. I sat on the road for seconds, and I stood up and went to school like nothing happened.
It was a significant moment in my life because I seldom get hurt or sick when I grew up. The weird thing is that I never ever cheered for all these developments. I do not know if I really like to be so linked up with all the developments. My cousin is 12 years older than me. We have almost the same experience of growing up. Our similar childhood and youth memories are within the few blocks away. We went to the same schools and even have the same teachers. However, the 12 years that I grew up and could remembered saw my hometown going through really thorough changes. A lot of environments and cultural customs only exist in my memories now.
