Marbles in Our Pockets, Snow on Our Boots

There are weekends that feel long before they even begin. By Friday evening I was already carrying towels from one room to another, opening doors, closing doors, checking who was sleeping over and who was suddenly staying for lunch without warning me first. Fruitloop laughed when I told her about it, but by Sunday I felt as if my whole house smelled like chlorine, sunscreen, and wet towels.

It was so hot those days. The kind of heat that sits against the walls at night and refuses to leave. Even after switching off the air conditioning before bed, the room still stayed warm, almost heavy, and I could feel it on my skin while trying to sleep. But honestly, I still prefer that over cold weather. I always will.

The weekend was full from beginning to end. Two friends of my youngest daughter slept over on Friday, and suddenly breakfast became an event instead of a meal. Then lunch as well, although nobody had informed me about that part. Six people around the table, wet feet running through the house from the swimming pool, towels for the shower, towels for the pool, more towels everywhere. By Saturday evening I was already irritated, though my daughter looked at me as if she truly could not understand why.

Still, there were good moments mixed into the chaos. My husband and I went with two other couples to a festival in the next town. First we sat in a restaurant for lunch, and afterward we listened to live music outside while the summer evening slowly cooled around us. One band played rock music, which I enjoyed. Then later came the techno music that my husband loves much more than I do. Not the soft kind either. The hard techno that feels as if it vibrates through your chest. He disappeared into the crowd dancing while the rest of us waited for him, laughing because he absolutely refused to leave. I remember standing there under the lights, hearing the bass from far away, watching people move through the warm night air. He was happy, truly happy, and sometimes that is enough.

Sunday became another gathering. My sister and brother came for lunch and we made barbecue. Everybody stayed around the pool the whole day. There was always movement somewhere — somebody opening the fridge, somebody calling for drinks, chairs scraping against the terrace floor. Then Monday finally became quiet. I told my daughters very clearly that I wanted peace. No friends. No extra people. Just silence for one day. And surprisingly, they listened.

Well… mostly.

The youngest disappeared again with her boyfriend and friends to the nearby city celebrations and only returned around midnight before school the next morning. I was not informed where she was, naturally. That seems to be the modern way now. Children no longer knock on doors or shout outside to ask if someone wants to play. They send messages from their beds. Sometimes my daughter sends me a Snap even when she is only one room away from me. And the worst thing is that I answer her.

Fruitloop and I spoke about that for a long time. About how different childhood feels now compared to when we were young.

When I think about my childhood, I immediately see open space. Not screens. Not phones. Space.

I grew up on a farm with my cousins nearby, and we were almost always outside. We invented games constantly because we had to. There was no television waiting for us every second of the day. We had fields, mud, bicycles, snow in winter, and imagination.

We played hide-and-seek across huge areas — gardens, trees, neighboring fields. Before starting we first had to agree on boundaries because otherwise someone would disappear too far and never be found again before dinner. We played hopscotch drawn onto the ground and jumped with one foot until our legs hurt. We played with elastic bands for hours. Sometimes I stood alone with a ball, throwing it against a wall again and again, creating games only for myself.

And marbles. I loved marbles most of all.

I can still feel them in my hand, smooth and cool, hidden inside pockets. The small ones, the large ones, the ones with strange colors swirling inside like tiny galaxies. Everyone had collections and everyone secretly wanted somebody else’s best marble. At home I kept a huge collection. I am honestly not even sure my daughters know what marbles really are anymore.

Fruitloop remembered carrying marbles to school in her pockets and playing during breaks. We both laughed about it like old women already, talking about objects children today would probably ignore after five minutes.

What I miss most is not even the games themselves. It is the way we created them. We made the rules as we went along. I always preferred that. Structured games bored me. I hated reading instructions even then, and I still do now. If somebody wants me to play a board game today, they must explain everything to me themselves because I refuse to read the booklet.

Back then we were always inventing something new. I spent most of my time with boys, with my cousin, with neighbors, running around outside and imagining worlds out of nothing. We had ideas all the time. Constant movement. Constant creativity.

Now everything arrives already finished.

If you want information, you search online. If you want entertainment, Netflix waits immediately. If children become bored, they scroll faster. Even conversations became faster. My youngest daughter speaks incredibly quickly now, almost rushing through words as if she wants conversations to end before they properly begin. She admitted herself that watching endless short videos changed the way she talks. She barely articulates anymore. My husband and I told her this recently after she came back from school interviews. We kept hoping she had spoken slowly enough during the interviews for people to understand her.

I crossed my fingers for her anyway.

She is also searching for a summer job at bakeries because she likes the idea of only working mornings. She printed CVs and walked into shops herself asking for work, which honestly made me proud. But so far nothing. No positive answers yet. I know she is disappointed even if she pretends otherwise.

While we spoke, the conversation drifted into deeper memories the way conversations sometimes do when people become comfortable. Fruitloop spoke about a terrible murder near the safari park there, far north near the borders. A quiet place where something violent suddenly happened. It unsettled both of us because those places always feel untouched, almost protected somehow. Hearing about danger entering them leaves a strange feeling behind.

Maybe that is why we both returned so naturally to childhood memories afterward. To safer places in our minds.

For me, one of the strongest memories is snow.

When I was young we had real winters every year. Thick snow covering the village until everything became silent and bright at the same time. We stayed outside for entire days. Nobody worried constantly. Nobody checked locations on phones. We walked through the village in wet gloves and frozen boots until late evening, laughing, throwing snow, falling down, getting back up again. Children now will probably never know that exact feeling. Winters changed. The world changed.

Sometimes music brings it back unexpectedly. Songs from the 1980s can suddenly return me to those afternoons with my cousins as if no time passed at all. A smell can do it too. Certain foods remind me immediately of my mother cooking by hand, without machines, stirring everything slowly herself. I can still picture her movements in the kitchen.

And then there are the stories from her own childhood, which carry much heavier memories.

My mother was born during the war. Her parents were already old when she arrived, much older than most parents. They had lived through both wars already. When I was young and she tried telling me those stories, I did not pay enough attention. Children rarely do. But now, hearing her speak about those years feels completely different.

I imagine her mother leaving the house at night while bombs threatened nearby villages. I imagine the panic of suddenly running with animals, carrying only what could be taken quickly. My grandmother forgot her dentures in a glass of water while escaping, and afterward she never had money to replace them. My mother always remembered her without teeth after that night.

Their house was destroyed completely.

They traveled more than one hundred kilometers with animals and villagers before eventually taking trains south. Families lived crowded together for years afterward. No water. Very little comfort. Animals sometimes inside the same space where people slept. My mother’s brother disappeared during the war at only eighteen and never returned. Nobody ever discovered what happened to him.

When she tells these stories now, I sit quietly and listen differently than before.

Because suddenly I understand how fragile ordinary life really is.

Maybe that is also why childhood memories feel so precious now. Not because everything was perfect — it was not — but because those small ordinary moments survive. Marbles in pockets. Wet grass under bare feet. Snow on gloves. Riding bicycles until dark. Knocking on a friend’s door instead of sending a message.

Simple things.

Things that did not know yet they would become memories.