longer.blue

~ First memory Of a painted red washroom Like in Amsterdam ~ Personal Influence I wrote about my first memory. According to my mother, I would have been less than two years old. I always thought that it was a red light that was emanating from a room across from me as I sat on the chesterfield in my aunt's living room. I always thought of it as a curious first memory since my mother's side of the family was Dutch and over the course of my life I heard several references to the red light district. Despite having learned that my aunts bathroom was merely painted red, I always wondered if this had some influence on the formation of my attitudes toward sex. Observation This haiku operates on a tension between innocence and retrospective meaning. The "first memory" positions the speaker at the very threshold of conscious experience — a moment so early it exists almost in myth, shaped as much by family narrative as genuine recall. The image of a "painted red washroom" is deceptively mundane, yet red carries enormous cultural freight. For the speaker, raised within a Dutch family, the Amsterdam reference was perhaps inevitable — the red light district casting its shadow backward onto something entirely ordinary. What makes this haiku quietly profound is its honest ambiguity. The speaker never claims causation, only resemblance — 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 in Amsterdam. That single word holds open a space of wondering rather than asserting influence. There is also gentle self-awareness here. The question — did a painted bathroom wall shape my sexuality? — is simultaneously absurd and earnest, capturing how pre-verbal impressions become vessels we pour meaning into across a lifetime. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To support me, visit: https://tinyurl.com/andy-rukes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~