I have always wondered if our first memory holds some deeper meaning.  Does it reflect some aspect of our personalities or is it simply the first thing that our newly-formed mental filing system was able to store?

    My first memory is of a soggy spring day when I was only two or two and a half.  Still too cold to play outside in rubber boots, I was wearing my very fashionable white snow boots with fluffy white fur trim.  I know I loved those boots because when one got stuck in the mud and my attempts to pull it out resulted in a stocking foot dangling in mid-air instead, I was traumatized.  Wailing, I limped back into our house with one sock totally caked in mud and my boot lost forever. 

     Or at least that’s what I was thinking.  I’m sure my mother tramped outside and got it while I sat, hunched and miserable sure my prized possession was gone forever, but I don’t remember that. 

    I have never really understood why this was my first memory or what it says about me.  Does it explain my horror at the thought of drowning in quicksand?  The fact that I rarely wear winter boots anymore? 

    Then again, maybe it was simply confirming the obviously accurate fashion rule that you should never wear white before Easter.