Edit Desk: Saving breadcrumbs, holding time

I remember watching my mom save the ends of loaves of bread as a child.

After making my cinnamon toast in the morning, she would take the leftover slices outside to our front porch.

“We’ll use this to feed the birds,” she would say.

I would watch her through our front door as she stood on the porch, tearing the leftover bread into bite-sized pieces and scattering them under our cherry tree.

It wouldn’t be long before I heard chirping. Soon after, birds would flock to the small patch of grass in front of our house, pecking away at the bread as my mom returned inside.

Feeding the birds was one of the first tasks I remember being granted as a child. I saw it as a privilege rather than a chore, because it gave me the opportunity to play make-believe.

I would pretend I was Cinderella, tossing corn for her chickens like in the Disney movie, or a flower girl in a wedding ceremony, scattering petals while walking down the aisle.

My sense of imagination bled into every aspect of my life. As I set the table, I would imagine I was preparing for a queen’s visit. Sitting alongside my easel, I was a teacher for a classroom of students.

I look back now and envy my younger self, who saw everything with a childlike sense of wonder.

I can’t remember the day my Barbies became inanimate dolls instead of humans to take care of or the day I was just singing in the shower, not on a stage in front of an audience.

I also can’t recall the first time feeding the birds felt like a chore instead of a privilege — when I became hyper-aware of the cold concrete under my feet or how tedious it felt to rip up the bread into small enough pieces.

I’ve often chalked up my loss of imagination to simply growing up. I used to think it was just because I matured and switched out my toys for a phone, or because my free time was filled with homework and extracurriculars.

But whenever I go home and my mom pulls out old toys from the attic, in the mental pictures of my childhood, I’m not alone.

My three older sisters are pivotal characters in my memories, and looking through the remnants of my childhood often sparks recollections about my siblings.

While growing up, I idolized my sisters. Even though they’re significantly older than me, they never let our age difference stop them from spending time with me when I was little.

Much of my imagination is something I attribute to them, even if it meant I got the worst Barbie doll when we played together, simply because I was the youngest.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after my sisters moved out of our home one by one, my dolls were permanently packed away, and I began to view feeding the birds as a chore, tearing up the bread as fast as I could just to finish.

In high school, I sometimes struggled with feeling like an only child. I remember every time my sisters came back home, I felt my childlike awe reignite, only for it to be extinguished the second they walked out the door.

Because of this, my emotions toward my sisters were conflicted. I teetered between feeling overwhelming bursts of love and resentment, feeling left behind even though it wasn’t something they had control over.

It wasn’t until I went to college and became the one walking out the front door that I no longer felt like I was being abandoned, but rather, like someone saying goodbye.

After going to school with the same people for 12 years and barely leaving my hometown, moving to Bethlehem was the first time I had truly experienced something my sisters had never touched.

It was also the first time I saw visiting home as something wonderful, as opposed to the cruel game I had built it up to be in my head when I resided there. It had always felt like a game, almost like I was playing hide-and-seek, where I had to track my siblings down because I was the one still at home.

But that changed when I also became the one visiting.

Now, whenever I go home and all my sisters are there, I feel my childlike awe reignite. But instead of that wonder disappearing when I leave, I’m able to hold on to it when we walk out the door, traveling our separate paths.

It can be easy to lose that spark of excitement. Sometimes I find myself losing it as I get caught up in my daily routine or as I trudge up four flights of stairs to the newsroom for what feels like the millionth time.

But then, while I’m walking, I’ll hear the birds, and I’ll remind myself to hang on to the joy I felt when my mom gave me bread to scatter from our porch. I think of the spark I feel when I’m with my sisters, remembering the memories we shared growing up.

It’s something I hope to hold on to as I finish up my junior year of college and start to prepare for my post-grad future.

And I’ll always smile to myself every time I come home and see bread under our cherry tree.