Memory in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

I have a song stuck in my head.
Just the very last bit of it, in fact.
You can ne’er return again

Which… is so eerily appropriate. Because that is from the song “Toyland” and the only time I ever heard it (on repeat, no less) was as a child desperately trying to get some sleep.

I had this circular music box that looked like an older clock. Inside was a bear surrounded by presents and when you wound up the box, the bear would “dance” by his body moving side to side and his arms and legs (fastened with a pin) would move of their own accord due to the body’s movements. And the little plinking music box notes of “Toyland” would play. And when it got to the end of the wind up (so those last 7 notes), it would slow to a stop. And it is those last seven notes that continue to play in my head.

I take myself back there. Six years old, Seven years old. Wanting desperately to go to sleep. Not knowing why I couldn’t. Parents thinking I was doing it intentionally. I’d sit there, listening to the music play. It would stop, I still wouldn’t be tired, but I didn’t play it again because my parents would know I was still awake. Can’t blame them, won’t blame them. Most parents get used to their children fighting against bed time, so it makes perfect sense that my parents would think I was doing the same. But of course I wasn’t. I wanted to sleep. I very much wanted to get sleep. So I’d sit there, in the dark. Just… willing myself to sleep so hard and it not working. Little did I know that such things would remain constant and common for me into my adulthood.

Toyland, toy land
Li-ittle girl and boy land
While you dwell within it
You are ever happy there

Childhood’s joy land
Mi-istic merry toy land
Once you pass its borders
You can ne’er return again

When you’ve grown up my dears
And are as old as I
You’ll laugh and ponder on the years
That roll so swiftly by my dears
That roll so swi-iftly by-why

Childhood’s joy land
Mi-istic merry toy land
Once you pass its borders
You can ne’er return again