For the d’Verse Haibun Monday prompt “Walk with me down memory lane”, but instead of a walk, I took a drive down memory lane.
I read the prompt just before leaving for work, with school drop-off on the way. So instead of writing for an hour, I just thought as I drove – and managed to miss two turns, so the kids had to walk to school from a couple of blocks away and I got a bit lost before finding my way here.
I don’t have any memory of the first house I lived in. But the first car I remember was my mum’s Holden Kingswood sedan. It was the somewhat shapeless, curved model, with a shape that is to a car what a partly sucked jelly baby is to a human. A quick google search leads me to think it must have been an HK. It was white with a sky-blue vinyl interior, bouncy bench seats in front and back, and a parcel shelf behind the back seat. Stuff to entertain my brother and I, and shut us up on long trips, was often put on the parcel shelf, including paper and crayons. No aircon of course back then, so that parcel shelf got very hot in the sun.
sweet scent of warm wax
rises from the brilliant pool,
each colour distinct
anotherKate 
It’s so easy to get lost in memories, how funny what happened as you delved deeper throughout. I find it in its humor, a symbolism in finding different paths as we connect to memories especially ones that happened long ago. Very beautifully penned, vivid, and descriptive. You must have had some fun memories in that car in childhood. I remember the first car I was in—these things are hard to leave you. 😁
Thanks Lucy. 🙂 Indeed lots of memories of that car – including the wooden spoon my mother kept in the front seat to smack us with if we fought too much. One day my brother grabbed it as she was backing up and threw it out the window, and she drove over it and it broke. 😀
hot wax
you could
see the lines
of each revolution per minute
excellent! I really like that, thank you.
yw thats the reason to blog.
I always enjoy reading your posts. I think it’s the way your write and tell stories.
Thanks Angela ❤
LOVE this entire post. You had me chuckling at the driving and missing two turns while you were thinking. And then, of course because you were in the car, your memory turned to a car. I chuckled at the melting crayons. And this description is phenomenal “with a shape that is to a car what a partly sucked jelly baby is to a human.” GREAT write. Thanks so much for sharing and posting!
Thanks Lillian, it was a great prompt. It would probably have been safer had I followed your instructions and sat down with pencil and paper.
I think the designer at Holden didn’t finish the 3D model – only got it partly shaped from the block and ran out of time. 😀
I almost opted to write about backseat memories, too. You dunnit well!
Thanks Ron. I love your description of the attic smell – “pine and dusty sunshine”. We have a loft space, and I love the smell of it but didn’t have the words for it before. Your description is perfect.
Wow. This is such a brilliant description. Really transports the reader to that place and time. 💜
Thanks Shruba ❤
I hope you're doing okay, and the studies are going well.
This made me smile Kate. I melted a few things on the shelf behind the back seat of my parents old Chevy — plastic toys, plastic cups, crayons, candy. Not certain I didn’t do it for fun?.
Thanks Rob. 🙂 Melted candy is the worst – permanently sticky and gets covered in fluff. But crayons… oh, there is nothing as beautiful as a pool of melted crayons. I don’t know why, but they seem to be immiscible, so every colour is still brightly and perfectly itself even as it curls and twists through all the others. I think I’m going to have to steal my daughters crayons and melt them while she’s at school tomorrow…
I really enjoyed your fishing trip description, but couldn’t see a like button.
A great memory! That crayon wax must have made a melted mess on the back window shelf. Great Haiku!
Thanks Dwight. 🙂 I’m surprised I don’t remember getting into trouble for it, I just remember all the bright colours in a big pool.
It was the sun not you!! :>)
There’s nothing like meandering memories to get you lost on the school run, Kate! My parents didn’t have a car until long after I left home, so I don’t have any family car memories, but I enjoyed yours, especially as it’s a car I’ve never heard of and had to look up. I love your description of it as having ‘a shape that is to a car what a partly sucked jelly baby is to a human’! I remember the smell of wax crayons and the melted crayon image is going to stick in my mind.
Thanks Kim. Those early Holdens were not very attractive. 😀 (Apologies to other Aussies, but…)
I still love the smell and feel of crayons. 🙂
Sometimes smells are the strongest triggers of memories. When you mentioned the melting wax crayons I could really imagine it. A lovely nostalgic haibun.
Thanks Ingrid. Smell is indeed a strong trigger for memory – and cravings. I’m always tempted to taste crayons.
There was a boy at my school who used to do that 😝
There’s always one… 😀
I had cravings for crayons and dog food when I was pregnant with the twins. I (almost) completely resisted them.
Yes I read about that, is it called ‘pica?’ I loved the smell of petrol (I don’t usually) but I never tried to drink it 😅
So interesting that you don’t remember the house, but you remember the car!! Children are little blank slates collecting information that’s stored in the attic of their brains forever!! Fascinating.
We spent a lot of time in the car – mostly fighting in the backseat. 😀
a fun story well told, all those wooden whackers had to break sometime!
Thanks Kate 🙂
I love how you being lost in the memory lane become so real… the memory of cars from that time is strange… I mostly remember the vinyl seats and how they made impressions on my bare legs on warm summer days.
and the vinyl would get hot, and bare skin would stick to it. 🙂
Such a vivid description I feel as though I have seen the car, smelled the melted crayons.
Thanks Helen 🙂
Brilliant descriptions… especially the jelly baby analogy! 🙂 And the understatement around the crayons and the hot shelf. And then the lovely haiku. Very enjoyable!
Thank you 🙂