I had a hopper . . . a great orange ball. I loved this poem, it so evoked childhood. So many memories but the sense of being outside time, of freedom and innocence. Thank you for sharing
This is written so beautifully, even if we had different experiences I saw my childhood in your words. This piece was a melancholic one, in a positive way, letting you remember the small things that meant so much and now we reflect on them. I loved it!
Thank you so much and very happy it resonated with different experiences.
It was a little bit melancholic but without trying to be sad.
Do you remember how chocolate used to taste better, and how things just somehow aren’t the same now, even if they haven’t really changed? Maybe it’s just memory or being younger, but I still look back with fondness and a small ache for some of that again 😊
No Indeed it was a nostalgic tone, the melancholia was a happy one or bittersweet! I too remember how things used to taste differently and I think of all the years that have passed. My childhood was complicated but I also have so many amazing memories that still linger with me. Thank you for sharing this piece!!
There’s a way this reads like memory refusing to behave like memory, slipping its own frame, choosing sensation over chronology, as if time itself were something still sticky on the fingers.
What makes it feel rooted in childhood is that distinct logic where the world is not yet fully separated from imagination: dinner arrives like interruption rather than rhythm, shoelaces “hide,” clothes “love” mud, and even chocolate seems to have its own loyalties. Nothing is merely described; everything is quietly alive in a way that feels both ordinary and enchanted.
And yet nothing here is truly “lost,” only relocated: downward, sideways, into a softer register where things don’t announce themselves but simply continue existing. Even the sun feels less like a setting than a lingering witness that hasn’t quite decided to leave.
I keep returning to that final turn, where sweetness doesn’t change, only our ability to arrive at it does. That lands with a gentle precision: childhood not as a place we leave, but as a way of perception that slowly becomes harder to access, though never fully gone.
My hopper was red and I loved it. This takes you back decades with immediate effect. Reading it is really like looking through your child’s eyes again. Beautiful.
Oh i was born 81 but yes still had a lot of that! I had the big orange hopper as a little girl and a Raleigh bike....I walked to school aged 7 on my own 🤣
I had a hopper . . . a great orange ball. I loved this poem, it so evoked childhood. So many memories but the sense of being outside time, of freedom and innocence. Thank you for sharing
Thank you Nat!
I had one too and loved it!
It took me back writing it.
Couldn't manage to fit in the cords but saving them for another one!
look forward to that.
Oh! You got me. I'm in tears.
Thank you Wolf!
I’m a kid again! I thought those days would never end. Wonderful, Mark!
Haha! It took me back writing it too!
Can't wait to go back again ☺️
Thank you!
This is written so beautifully, even if we had different experiences I saw my childhood in your words. This piece was a melancholic one, in a positive way, letting you remember the small things that meant so much and now we reflect on them. I loved it!
Thank you so much and very happy it resonated with different experiences.
It was a little bit melancholic but without trying to be sad.
Do you remember how chocolate used to taste better, and how things just somehow aren’t the same now, even if they haven’t really changed? Maybe it’s just memory or being younger, but I still look back with fondness and a small ache for some of that again 😊
No Indeed it was a nostalgic tone, the melancholia was a happy one or bittersweet! I too remember how things used to taste differently and I think of all the years that have passed. My childhood was complicated but I also have so many amazing memories that still linger with me. Thank you for sharing this piece!!
There’s a way this reads like memory refusing to behave like memory, slipping its own frame, choosing sensation over chronology, as if time itself were something still sticky on the fingers.
What makes it feel rooted in childhood is that distinct logic where the world is not yet fully separated from imagination: dinner arrives like interruption rather than rhythm, shoelaces “hide,” clothes “love” mud, and even chocolate seems to have its own loyalties. Nothing is merely described; everything is quietly alive in a way that feels both ordinary and enchanted.
And yet nothing here is truly “lost,” only relocated: downward, sideways, into a softer register where things don’t announce themselves but simply continue existing. Even the sun feels less like a setting than a lingering witness that hasn’t quite decided to leave.
I keep returning to that final turn, where sweetness doesn’t change, only our ability to arrive at it does. That lands with a gentle precision: childhood not as a place we leave, but as a way of perception that slowly becomes harder to access, though never fully gone.
There’s a lot of mystery in this one 😊
Yes! 💛
Wonderful piece! It brings back memories... 'Dinner always came too early, like it was trying to catch me out.' Every. Single. Time. :D <3
hehe
Dinner did always come way too early Petra! Even if we were hungry!
Thank you! 💛
My hopper was red and I loved it. This takes you back decades with immediate effect. Reading it is really like looking through your child’s eyes again. Beautiful.
Beautiful
Thank you!
Great piece! 🥰
Thank you Fragments!
Sounds like you were a child of the 70s 80s🤔
Hehe - Sounds like some who knows ;)
Hopper or chopper I was deciding over for a while, but chopper is a UK name so decided to chop the chopper and replace it with a hopper :)
Oh i was born 81 but yes still had a lot of that! I had the big orange hopper as a little girl and a Raleigh bike....I walked to school aged 7 on my own 🤣
Yay!
Those were the days
Used to walk 4 miles to school every day, by myself, whatever the weather from 7+
4 miles??🤣 well as a girl perhaps only a mile was acceptable for me! It was the norm
Long legs and no choice!
Such a lovely reading Dipti.
Chocolate was for sharing in those days, even though there was never enough to go around!
I like how you've see the balance between just describing and living those experiences.
Thank you!
👌