stories, photographs, adventures…the next chapter
The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing the facts.
Agnes Sligh Turnbull
The pursuit of perfection.
A perfect plot for the impossible.
As the first few words
Slip out flawlessly.
A fateful pause. Phrase suspended.
Cloudy with doubt.
Rewind.
Breathe.
Begin again.
New words form.
Slightly bent.
Frayed. Rough.
Slowly emerge
One by one
Scraping. Sweating.
Squeezing their way out.
And stick this time.
Flying together.
This post is inspired by:
V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #18: Gathering
https://onewomansquest.org/2018/10/08/v-j-s-weekly-challenge-18-gathering/
Turning my attention toward the positive this week…
I am gathering source material. I like the way that sounds…source material. For a very long story about “the house” — or rather, our home, of over 36 years. As I have written about in previous posts (Nest, Photos), my husband and I downsized and moved to a condo a couple of years ago. It was probably the most exhausting thing I have ever done (besides giving birth to two 9 lb+ babies, but that didn’t take as long).
I was more than ready to move. However, our adult children (who had moved out over a decade earlier) were clearly NOT ready for us to move. Especially our daughter. Our nest was their nest, empty (of them) or not. The reality of no childhood home to return to for their (infrequent) visits was jolting. Did they try to talk us out of it? Absolutely not. But their emotional ties were evident. “Coming down the stairs on Christmas morning” together…(every single year) would come to an end. The “remember whens” without the familiar backdrop of home…hard to imagine. Our new grandson would not be able to run around in his mama’s old backyard.
On the final day before the sale, I toured the empty house on facetime with my long distance 34 year old daughter. We shared a last look at the rooms she grew up in…and some memories of each. Both of us in tears.
I then realized the enormity of this home’s real significance in our lives. But mostly in our kids’ lives. This surprised me since I never had any deep emotional ties to my childhood homes. None at all. I could not fully understand their attachment. How deep it is.
I am going to write about those 36 1/2 years. For them. For us. For me. A story…the house that became a home and what happened. I am very curious to see what evolves.
But first I need to begin gathering my materials (after shopping at my favorite office supply store):
Once gathered, let the writing begin.
And…
I am so glad I saved all this stuff!
For me, writing something down is the only road out.
Anne Tyler
~~~
Ah…but where?
Where to start that road? The way out.
Gotta begin digging somewhere. Turning over rocks. Roots. Dirt.
The perfect spot.
Or the less than perfect spot…but the best spot.
Which direction…right…left…forward…backward?
Prepare the foundation. For strength. Support.
Begin at the middle? the end?
Curb? Maybe no curb. Perhaps it will be wider than normal.
That’s okay.
And those trees. In the way? Or build around them?
Maybe no trees.
Maybe flowers instead.
Color it up.
Or not.
A proper base for the layer of asphalt. Maybe concrete.
Or perhaps just throw down some gravel and be done with it.
Or forget the fancy stuff and pack down the dirt.
After all it’s just a road.
But it’s your road.
How does one find this road?…that’s up to you.
A sign.
A name.
So travelers will know.
It’s your road out.
~~~
My writing life started with diaries – the kind with the tiny keys. Keys implying a privacy that wasn’t actually possible. But which gave a 9 year old a sense of importance. Tucking away private thoughts in a safe space. A comforting fantasy. Trusting that the key really worked.
As I got older, diaries (keys long gone) were followed by small spiral lined notebooks (written with an orange Flair pen – this was, after all, the ’70’s). Next… black hardcover “blank books.” And then back to small spiral notebooks and thick journals. I actually preferred the printed lines to guide my sometimes erratic handwriting; angled in anger or loopy with emotion. I went through a calligraphy stage in college and carefully inked my thoughts with spaced precision. An art form! And since I was the sister who was NOT the artist, I felt mighty proud about that.
My good friend Debbie gave me a new 8 1/2″ x 11″ black blank book when we were both 20 and about to start sharing an apartment – a first for both of us. We would finish up our last 1 & 1/2 years of college together.
She filled the first page:
Here is the book you wanted. It means so much to have a book like this…to write down thoughts, feelings….watch how you grow, how your feelings change and how much more aware you become when you read back through it…
The second and third pages contained Pink Floyd lyrics from “Dark Side of the Moon.”
Breathe, breathe, in the air…Don’t be afraid to care…Leave, but don’t leave me…Look around and choose your own ground….
I followed Debbie’s directions and kept filling that journal off and on for almost 18 years. (It didn’t come with a key. I wonder if it should have.) I was as open with my written words at 20 and 25 and 30 as I was at 9 and 10. Kind of shocking really. And now sometimes embarrassing – and painful – to see my heart splayed open on the page over and over, year after year.
Entries became sporadic and eventually just covered major life events – or the night before major life events – as I pondered their significance. Marriage. Career. Parenthood. Family dramas. Joy. Grief. Loss. I started and stopped various notebooks, journals and blank books. A brand new one always a hard-to-resist invitation to begin again. Maybe it was the fresh, smooth paper & its possibilities…like getting new notebook paper, pens and pencils for the start of school each September.
At the ripe old age of 27 – about 2 weeks before the birth of my first child I wrote…
It seems that the older I get, the faster life goes by…We Are Going To Be Parents!!…It will probably be the most important thing we do….”
The next entry (in that journal) was 10 years later when I had a weekend away by myself. By then I had a second child and a consulting job. I was still in my thirties. The 4 page summary began with…
Motherhood has changed my life more than anything else before it.
And ended with…
After all these years I’m finally starting to acknowledge that there’s another side of me that’s been buried – perhaps a more creative side – I’m not sure…”
Looking back, I was spot-on about the motherhood thing.
…I also have several well worn notebooks filled with stories of all the amazing, funny, and truly one of a kind things my 2 children ever said or did.
Truly like no other kid ever in the history of the world. Obviously. For example: How many 8 year old boys do you know who can make an earring out of a Cheerio? And whose mother wrote a story about it?
I couldn’t help myself. It was such fun….
The bright color caught my eye. The trademark yellow-with-red-lettering Kodachrome logo. Empty boxes that once held carousels of slides. I didn’t notice any slides or carousels; obviously not recyclable. The boxes had tumbled out of a recycling container that I passed on a recent walk. Put to the curb. Recycling day. But I wondered about their contents. What happened to the slides? Did they get scanned? Printed? Or handed down to the next generation (I wondered hopefully…). I recognized those boxes and that logo because that was me a few years ago. My late grandfather photographed with slide film. He took pictures everywhere: on fishing trips, hunting trips, trips to Europe, Asia and around the USA. He also photographed his family, especially his grandchildren when they were young. Anyone who is still familiar with slides knows the quality is superior to film. To view 50-plus year old slide images is to step back in time.
My grandfather, who we called Opa, loved his grandchildren and loved to take slides, polaroids and 8mm home movies of us. I remember the bright pop of the flashbulb, which he licked before inserting in the flash unit of his camera. Usually while balancing a cigarette in one hand or while it hung from the corner of his mouth. (Throughout my childhood, I always held my breath waiting for the cigarette to fall out and set him or the house on fire. Fortunately it never did). Now I have those slides.
He also took hundreds of photos on his many trips with my grandmother Oma. A few years ago I went through the large box of slide boxes and “magazines” (for slide projectors pre-carousel) that had been handed down to me. Opa had sorted them but only labeled sporadically. Venice – Paris – Zurich – Florence – Pompeii – Naples – Rome – Switzerland – Madrid – India – Germany – ??? 
I looked at every slide, curious and fascinated by the people and places he framed and preserved. I estimate the time frame to be in the 1940’s – 1960’s. I wonder if he ever loaded the magazines into a slide projector, sat back and watched the images one by one. I sure hope so.
…a few samples of his work…
one letter UP ~ diary 2.0 