My name is Amanda Dambrink. I'll graduate from Brigham Young University with a major in English and a minor in Editing. Even with an undergraduate degree I'll feel like I know little to nothing about anything. Maybe graduate school will fix that...or make it worse.
I remember watching fireworks in the backyard with Emily, Adam, and mom while we waited for dad to come home from work. The entire yard was surrounded by ivy. It was on the trees and it covered the ground, but it didn't dare infringe upon the grass; that's sacred ground--at least to the kind of kid I was. Funny thing about this memory--I was too young to have it. I was actually only about a month old that Fourth of July that my family house-sat for some friends. Well, that's me I suppose; I do the impossible, or at least the unlikely, often without even intending to. I often stumble upon things while stumbling over other things.
Yes, I remember the grass, my family, and even the celebratory sparklers, but I remember little else. I'm not sure why I remember some details above others, and this uncertainty is only compounded by the guesswork involved in trying to understand why a one-month-old girl remembers certain sights and smells over others. Do one-month-olds care about dad coming home from work? How can I even remember that it was my dad, or that the humidity of the evening was dense, yet pleasant? My best guess is that I have imposed my current understanding of that early memory. I prefer to think that I just have a freakishly good memory, if only because it makes me feel one step closer to becoming eccentric (something I actually consider to be interesting and desireable).