What so you think of when you butter toast?

So I finally caught up on my blog reading a little. I was over at Elisson's joint and he asked what stupid shit we think about. Well I don't always think of stupid shit but it so happens I have been having this recurring memory all week.

Every time I butter toast, I have a vision of the street I used to live on when I was five years old. Olive Street is a long street on top of a ridge. There are many side streets that run down a steep incline from it. I don't remember their names but at the far end was the roller coaster hill.

We called it that because it had a dip and a rise in it before you got to the bottom and if you drove really fast through that part the car would lift off a little and you would get that roller coaster feeling in the pit of your stomach. My mom wouldn't do it, but my Dad would and I used to plead with him every time we went out to take some air on that hill. When it was just me and him, he would get loft that would make the Dukes of Hazard proud. I loved driving around with my Dad.

But that's not what I remember when I butter my toast. As I watch the stuff melt, and it's not even really butter, it's some ridiculously healthy pretender, I remember walking with my mother on that street. I mean I get a vision. I can see us on a sunny day, walking with my little sister. My mother is pushing my baby brother in his big blue carriage with the awning on top.

There's a house on the street with a big linden tree in the front yard It bears some kind of yellowish fringy flowers. My mother walks into the yard and pulls one off the tree. She tells me she used to make tea with these flowers when she was a girl. She's excited to find them. I don't say anything, but it feels like an important moment in time.

This really happened. I don't know why I remember it so clearly or why I'm recalling it so vividly now. Maybe I need to buy some linden flower tea. I don't believe I've ever had any.