I often have memories that are sometimes funny, serious, concerning, or just weird that I can’t remember what explicitly they are from, or have any real context. Of course, my therapist says a lot of that is probably my childhood trauma, or situations I don’t fully remember, but a lot of times they are just weird memories.
One of those weird childhood memories was what I assumed was a dream or something. It was a heavier german soldier on top of an Alpine Ski Car being kicked in the face and bleeding everywhere before falling to his death. It didn’t scare me in a scary way, but it had some weird fascination on my part, probably because I have a fear of heights (although not afraid of flying… go figure…).
It is one of those hundreds of memories that pops up unbidden when I am just waking up, extremely tired, upset, or just in a weird mood. It wasn’t a horrible memory, nothing that caused me distress at all, just a weird fixation. I knew it was somewhere in my very early childhood that I had either a dream or seen something.
Today I found where it came from by accident, a 1968 movie named “Where Eagles Dare” starring Clint Eastwood and a bunch of other actors from that time.
I just saw the scene when Richard Burton (a famous old days actor) was kicking the face of a German spy and knocking him off. I think what stuck with me since childhood was the German spy screaming for help. This is definitely the chunk of the movie that for whatever reason I never forgot.
I am sure I saw it on tv with my dad when I was young (under 11 or 12, probably 4-8 years old) when we lived at Twelve Pines Apartments in Everett. Now that I saw the rest of the movie and think about it, I remember it being a sunny day with that cool but sunny spring air that Washington State gets. I believe and we were sitting in the living room apartment of our first apartment in the complex (we lived in two, the second one we moved into when my brother was born in 1980).
You can tell that is the old living room because out the window is the very left-hand side of the playground area that is near the building across the street. Also, that is me sitting on the couch (in both pictures). I will have to go back and fix these photos for the future.
Since it was before 1980 it means I was 8 or less, and that fits now that I think about it. It wasn’t a scary movie, scary memory just a weird image that I would sometimes remember. It makes me remember my dad this morning too. It isn’t a sad memory, we always sat and watched tv together in the morning while he drank instant coffee.
I sit here now super early in the morning, drinking instant coffee and I do miss him, a little sadness just crept in, but that being said I am grateful to have that memory and now I know where it came from.
A Girl U Should Know 