Seven Answers III: A Memory

(Read more about Seven Answers).

6. Describe one of your early memories.

I was fourteen months old, still in diapers, and sitting in the mud puddle which always formed after a rain at the corner of our dead-end street.  It was a shallow puddle, very warm, and I vividly remember the feel of the clay-ey mud below the water, soft as butter, squishy and impossible to grab, and the way it would 'powder' up and turn the water opaque when disturbed with a fist or a foot.  I remember fishing out drowned worms and throwing them to one side.  I don't remember anyone lifting me out of the water or scolding me for playing in the mud, but I have been told that I did it quite often...

My partner, who is a psychologist and very wise, has patiently explained to me why I cannot be remembering this, that no one can truly remember something from before the age of three or four at the earliest... but I do.  Soft as butter...