It's the Small Things. Decorative Wall Art Matters & On a Conference Call (While Lying on My Parents' Bed) I Can't Help But Be Nostalgic

I always say my earliest memory as a human being is the time we brought our first dog home to Clarks Mills, New York. I have vague memories of getting McDonalds one Christmas because my dad had to work. My mom brought us close to the Utica airport so we could sort of celebrate with my father. Even earlier was the time we went to a farm and picked up our first puppy dog, Dusty. He was a blonde lab mutt and I can still smell his puppy breath. I remember there was a pile of fuzz-nuggets running about in a pen and one walked over to my mother and she was sold. I also remember the joy my sisters and I had when we had the puppy in our house for his first night. We brought out our pillows to the linoleum floor in the kitchen where he was kept. I loved the smell of new dog; in my heart I remember the fact that my sisters and I united around a new creature to care for in our house.

Lounging on my parents bed last night, I found myself looking at an original threesome hanging aside the dresser. I started thinking about Dusty, and intended on writing a post, joking that I was in the bedroom where the three of us were created (trying to imagine the romantic interlude that resulted in our conception). Ah, but that was not in Clay, New York. It was near Utica, and that is where we brought home our first puppy.

Since then, there have been a number of dogs with all sorts of stories attached to them, but that is what I started to think of as I looked around the room. Yes, ZOOM, I know I'm supposed to be attentive in conference calls, but hiding from the noise of TVs, I found myself lying on the bed my parents sleep on, and this is the photograph that caught my attention.

When were the three of us this young? Who took the photo? What pains in the asses were we on the day it was taken? Were we wearing Vera-created clothing, in a promenade of her craft?

Then, taking my parents' car to the auto-dealership for service, I stopped by Cynde's to see how Nikki's room was recreated and saw the mini-frog portrait I found online for everyone last year. It's late in the memory-making region, but I love knowing one of these is in her house and the other is in KC's.

I actually like the 3 haircuts we had at the time and wonder if we might recreate this photo this holiday season, wearing similar styles and smiles. I'm up for it - I wonder if they are.

I cant' help but see Uncle Milford, my dad, my grandparents, the Ripleys, my mom, and our childhood memories when I look at the three of us - me, the boy, sandwiched between two girls. Cynde and KC are replications of Sean and Jacob Charles, while I will always be an older version of Dylan (who I also saw last night. I can't help but see a lot of me in him, especially his height...although, I never quite grew a 1940s/1950s 'stache - it looks good on him. I'd look like a gigantic goober)

Sometimes I wish I could jump back into such a photo and have more sensory-rich interaction with the moment it was taken. How did the three of us interact? Where were mom and dad? How did the grand-folks react when the picture was given to them, most likely under the Christmas tree? Why doesn't my older sister ever where white knit stockings anymore? Did my sisters have the premonition then that they would one day share a waterbed during their high school years? Now there's a story. 

I now see this picture as absolutely beautiful, knowing how lucky the three of us were to grow up in the ways we did - innocent decades where kids could go outside to play and fear was not necessarily in our vocabulary except for Harry Pookus and the threat that Santa might not come. 

And I'm laughing, too, because I imagine the aches and pains that would likely come if we actually tried to re-make this photograph...but also how I'd stand up like a middle finger if we did.

Oh, the joy of aging.