Thank you to my parents

Do you ever wish you could go back to your childhood room and take a slow look around at, let’s say, age five, seven, or fifteen? ...
In order to preserve in my mind some of my favorite spots and the flood of memories I treasure with them, I now try to take photographs of those spaces from time to time while we’re still really living in them.
Amanda Blake Soule “The Creative Family”

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When I read these lines in Amanda’s book I started thinking about my own childhood and the room in which I spent most of it. There are some things I remember well, like the bunk bed my dad made for my sister and I out of their old bed; but there are plenty more memories that are hovering on the edge of my visual eye, fleeing just as I’m about to see them clearly. Then again sometimes a memory jumps out and I’m surprised that I could ever forget the colour, the smell, the item or the event it summons.

With my dad, originally uploaded by Fioleta.

Thinking back to our tiny two rooms flat, I unexpectedly remembered that at some stage we had a swing hanging in one of the doorways. And this memory made me think of all the things my parents did with the limited resources at hand to enrich our lives: we always had access to various magazines (DYI, art, travel) and books; they were happy to buy us craft and art supplies; my mum had patience enough to teach us to crochet and to knit (I’m not sure why I never picked up the second one until now); she knitted us beautiful items of clothes that I still remember while most of the store-bought once disappeared from my memory forever; they took us on the trips to Black Sea, Moscow and St Petersburg; they borrowed money of everyone they knew (bank loans didn’t really exist in Soviet Russia) and bought a summer house next to river Don.

With my mum, originally uploaded by Fioleta.

I suspect that my parents would say that they did many creative things out of necessity, but they must’ve enjoyed them as well as they managed to share the enjoyment of gardening, cooking, fishing, making things with me. The hard task of being a parent is often under-appreciated, but since becoming one myself I feel the need to thank my parents for being decent, hard-working, fun, caring and loving people.

My dear parents, I’m proud to be your daughter. Thank you for every day you've been my parents.