Kindergarten

The beginning of my school years had quite an impact to me. For over five years I knew but one life--my family. I had spent my entire life up to that point in the company of my grandparents, my parents, and my siblings, and nobody else.

Suddenly I found myself torn away from home for several hours a day. I had an "awakening" by the name of kindergarten. I was amazed, bewildered, and overwhelmed by what was before me. All of a sudden I found myself surrounded by others like me! I was instantly in love with all aspects of kindergarten. One of my favorite times was nap time. I still remember the feeling I got when I lay down on my nap rug. My rug! It was bought by my mom for me, and was instantly ferried off to spend the year with me at school, untouchable by my brothers or sisters. Each time I lay down I gazed lovingly at my multicolor-striped nap rug, and an overwhelming feeling of warmth and coziness enveloped me as I fell asleep. My whole life since, I have always had a rush of warm feelings every time I happen to see one of them in a store or somewhere. I'm instantly transported back to a happy time half a century ago, to a love affair I had with kindergarten.

Another thing I really liked was playing house. I think it was partly because I got to interact with girls, but it was also because of all the great things there were to play with. See, at home everything around a child is big. All our household things are made for adults. Suddenly, here I was surrounded by chairs, tables, utensils, and all sorts of things that were all kid-sized! I couldn't get enough of it.

When it was art time I remember being in love with the large-sized crayons--all so perfect and all of them unbroken or ruined by negligent siblings! I couldn't get enough of kindergarten. I think it must have been the happiest year of my entire life.