Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my relatives: as a toddler, I spent time with my youngest uncle and youngest aunt on my dad’s side until they got married. Then, I spent a lot of time with my siblings and my cousins.
Before my oldest siblings graduated high school, the three of us younger kids played with our oldest brother. One fond memory was playing in our study, where our brother had many of his classical music cassette tapes and our only sound system in the house. We had this large sleeping bag/blue comforter that we laid down on the carpet and pretended it was the ocean. We played Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” piece on the sound system and pretended we were in a sea storm. Our brother turned out the lights so to simulate the conditions of our make-believe.
When we outgrew our sea storm, we went on to discover the world of computer games on our brother’s early Macintosh, which he took to college with him. Still, those games didn’t compare to our imaginative sea storm and Richard Wagner’s piece. I always feel a bit of nostalgia when I hear that piece on the radio.