Childhood Dreaming

I was recently thinking of the fact that we always look up to the people who climb seemingly unreachable heights. As a kid, I loved the characters of cartoons and TV shows like Dragonball Z and Power Rangers where people actually had superpowers, but I knew that these were not grounded in reality--the people I truly admired were the real people who had achieved the same immortality. Especially athletes.

The first sport I was a big fan of was basketball and the NBA of the nineties. Following my older brother's knowledge of the game, I quickly knew the names of Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Grant Hill, Hakeem Olajuwon, Alonzo Mourning, and Air Jordan (everyone had these shoes, seriously). I played some ball as a kid in order to learn the sport at a very elementary level. Although I was never any good, my brother and I enjoyed the sport so much that we got a basketball hoop in our backyard one year, and there's one specific moment from second grade that always sticks out to me.

As much as I thought that Scottie Pippen and Shaq were the coolest guys out there, I thought that dunking was the coolest thing that anyone could ever do. I kept seeing the older brothers of my friends and other older boys being able to dunk in hoops that were not nearly as high up as the NBA ones, but it still seemed awesome. I always dreamed of dunking, so one day I decided to make this a reality. My hoop was right outside my parents' parkway, so I decided to see how high up and how far away I would be from the hoop if I stood on top of my mom's car.

I also thought you could only dunk sticking your tongue out.

I climbed the back of her car which was facing the hoop, but there were still a couple of obstacles. First of all, I wasn't sure my tiny self could jump far enough to catch the rim without slipping and falling on my ass. However, I knew that I could jump high enough to reach the rim, but my parents' driveway has a short roof so I was scared that I would hit my head before even reaching the rim. The trick was to somehow jump as far and high as I could while crouching my head and then lifting it back up as I got to the rim while extending my hands and grabbing hold of it.

After a few moments of hesitation, I decided to do it. I leapt from that car determined to be the first seven-year old kid to dunk. I somehow managed to make it out of the parkway without hitting my head on the roof and I managed to extend my arms just far enough to grab the rim with my tiny hands. As I grabbed the rim, I was enthralled by what I was accomplishing so I lifted myself up a little with a huge smile on my face. This ecstasy clouded my senses enough to make my fingers slip and fall down along with the rest of my body. I fell on my ass in an awkward position that made gravity thrust my head down to the concrete along with the rest of my body, causing me to lose consciousness.

This is what I was trying to do.

I woke up what felt like months later with in a complete daze and a terrible headache. I suffered momentary amnesia(not sure if that's a term, but you get my point), and I started asking all sorts of questions out of the confusion. "Where am I? What day is it? How old am I?", but I was eventually fine and resumed to play video games later that night.

Although I didn't suffer any permanent brain damage or break any bones, this is one of the most vivid memories I have of my childhood. It was an attempt to reach some level of common ground with these leaping superheroes. At the time, blasting a basketball through a hoop while holding on to the rim semeed like the most important thing in the world. And although I came crashing down after achieving that, at least I came down in a blaze of glory, and I think that matters.

I think that dreaming and doing something about it in some level--in any level is important. It makes us realize that even though we will never be that big or talented, we can be just like them in some scale, and I find some satisfaction in trying out the things we love and see what happens. As bad as that migraine was, holding on to that rim for two seconds was awesome.

Memories of Christmas Past

Christmas is all about cliches so forgive the lack of originality in the title. I originally scrapped the idea of a Christmas post, but my friend and talented blogger encouraged me to follow through. A little over a year ago, I wrote a paper for my medieval drama class about the true meaning of Christmas as seen through several modern and medieval works of art. I talked about how most contemporary representations of Christmas are based on the materialistic idea of gift-giving, the gluttony of the feast, and the lack of regard for the Baby Jesus and the rest of Christianity. Although I firmly believe that this is the "true" Christmas, it is not the Christmas I experienced growing up. And I'm sure many of you would agree.

I grew up in a somewhat secular household, but Christmas was still celebrated here. The 24th always consisted of a big dinner at my grandparents' house that included cousins, uncles, aunts, grand-uncles, grand-aunts, and other relatives. It was a way of getting the entire family together in celebration of...well...family I guess. The dinner would always include large plates of moro(a combination of rice and beans), pastel en hoja(boiled dough with a mixture of ground beef and victuals), honey-glazed pork, wine, and a large turkey turkey with stuffing. It would be a way for adults to enjoy wine, liqueurs, and good conversation, and for kids to have one last night of anticipation capped off by fireworks before the big day.

This is how I remember them.

The next day was pure joy. We would wake up and check out the extensive collection of gifts of all sizes and colors under the tree before ripping them open. I could never get enough toys, but I hated clothes more than anything(ironically enough, it's the other way around now). From Toy Story toys, basketball hoops, Nintendo 64 games, bicycles, baseball cards, and cash, there was no way to disappoint me as a kid back then. Sure, I didn't get every single item from my absurdly long Christmas list, but kids only feel their worth in the world through stuff and entertainment. And affection I guess.

But it's different now. The holiday does not have that magical aura anymore--if this was 1997, I'd be playing Donkey Kong on my Game Boy Pocket right now. Christmas will never be as great as it was back then, and that makes me sad, but it still reminds me. It always puts things into perspective and brings back a little bit of that ecstasy back. I sometimes feel like the Grinch, overwhelmed by food and family and just the general spirit of it all, but it's the long-lasting tradition and the memories created by it that make me look forward to it every year. I warned you at the beginning that Christmas was cheesy so there's no other way to explain it (sorry). But after it's over, there's nothing left to do but move on to normalcy again, and try to bring back some of that joy with you.