Blocks and Me

I have had these blocks for as long as I can remember. There's something very special about them. I've busted them out every so often throughout the years, and whomever I'm showing them to, be they 1 or 40, they get pretty stoked about them. They're wooden and just the right weight. They're colorful. And there's just the right amount of exciting, differently shaped blocks to make them rare (such as arches, half circles, and very long rectangles).

If you look closely at that yellow block towards the front of the photo, you might notice that it has some marker on it. This is because I decided as a child that these blocks were the perfect size for Barbie TVs. Several blocks have this design, because it was easy to misplace the specific block with the markings along all the other ones. One or two of them even has a design on the side to make it resemble a VCR.

When I was very small, between one and two, some of my parents friends owned some crazy, much more complicated blocks. There are photos of me standing next to towers that my parents had built with their friends (because it was the early 80s and people did stuff like that). After the photos, my parents would encourage me to knock down the towers, as they were done with them. I've been told I was quite hesitant, but eventually convinced to do so. I, of course, loved it.

Similarly, my dad used to work in an office where one of the conference rooms had a wall that was covered in white board. So at a holiday party, I was given a white board marker and told that I could go ahead and color on the walls. I wasn't buying it - I had been punished for this exact thing before, at home. But after a lot of convincing, I put marker to board and had a good time.

I don't remember either of those events, but what I do remember from visiting offices where my dad worked was that I used to steal sugar cubes out of the break rooms. They were such a dichotomy - the sugar was tasty and came in such a cute little shape, but on the other hand, the sharp corners cut my mouth. I still remember how those break rooms smelled - like old coffee and white board markers.