Not long ago, we wrote with pens in notebooks. Some of us had typewriters. We had strikeouts and white out for mistakes. If we wrote something more than journal entries, we'd cut and tape to move one part from here to there. Even writing lightening quick, we couldn't follow our line of thought. Our thoughts had to slow down a bit so we could find them in ink.
You had to get to a place, be there and see it and feel it and then, whatever you wrote carried that with it, part of it, onto the page. You took a rough edge of a building or a bright color of a stroke of light or the texture of a river rock, only a bit, and the reader filled in the rest.
You had to get to a place, be there and see it and feel it and then, whatever you wrote carried that with it, part of it, onto the page. You took a rough edge of a building or a bright color of a stroke of light or the texture of a river rock, only a bit, and the reader filled in the rest.
I read novels with long stretches of description. I read The Enduring Hills by Janice Hold Giles, I read Steinbeck. Out of the Grapes of Wrath, what do I remember? The turtle crossing the road. How singular he was in his purpose and how he couldn't be talked out of it.
That was the morning Honey had his second heart attack.
From the window in the waiting room on the 6th floor, I could see runners on a trail outside, could see a bridge arching over a street, could see a huge church in the distance.
We slept there, pushed three chairs together and turned them to face the walls to make a bed. Five in the morning, I'd wake and go walk on the trail. They wouldn't let me back to I.C.U. until later. By 7, usually, I could go back. Nurses sat in a semi circle behind a counter with widowed rooms circling them. They watched screens that told them what they needed to know. All through the night, someone kept vigil while he mended there in the hospital bed, while our youngest daughter and I slept on the makeshift beds in the waiting room.
We were there thirteen days. Honey kept asking could he go outside long enough to breathe air. I sat by the windows in the cafeteria and drank water flavored with watermelon and mint. We bonded with other refugees in the waiting room.
Honey came out of all that thinking of apple trees. How he'd like to plant these little overgrown lots with apple trees. The lots aren't big enough for much, just little spaces crammed between, no room for houses or even parking lots. But big enough for an apple tree.
From the window in the waiting room on the 6th floor, I could see runners on a trail outside, could see a bridge arching over a street, could see a huge church in the distance.
We slept there, pushed three chairs together and turned them to face the walls to make a bed. Five in the morning, I'd wake and go walk on the trail. They wouldn't let me back to I.C.U. until later. By 7, usually, I could go back. Nurses sat in a semi circle behind a counter with widowed rooms circling them. They watched screens that told them what they needed to know. All through the night, someone kept vigil while he mended there in the hospital bed, while our youngest daughter and I slept on the makeshift beds in the waiting room.
We were there thirteen days. Honey kept asking could he go outside long enough to breathe air. I sat by the windows in the cafeteria and drank water flavored with watermelon and mint. We bonded with other refugees in the waiting room.
Honey came out of all that thinking of apple trees. How he'd like to plant these little overgrown lots with apple trees. The lots aren't big enough for much, just little spaces crammed between, no room for houses or even parking lots. But big enough for an apple tree.
Purpose is what keeps us going. It doesn't matter what it is we're doing. Maybe finding meaning in playing cards. Maybe watching stars. I have a friend who says, "just dance". That's good, dancing. Playing the earth drum. I can dance my way out of feeling down and into something new.
Lately, I'm thinking of impermanence and not thinking of it as a bad thing. I've always drug my heels on change. As in THINGS changing, mountains, trees, that sort of thing. They should stay. An old store that served us well. It should be there still. The cobblestones on the old road that led home. They paved it. A tragedy. An old jacket that I've worn for years. It's not something to toss away like it wasn't something.
These days though, I'm letting things fall, an old tree shedding leaves.
I figure if things go well, I've got another twenty years. That's a good long time. But not so long that I need so much. I remember twenty years ago.
Twenty years ago, which was yesterday, our family went out, not knowing where they were going. We lost the place we lived because Honey got crippled, couldn't work and didn't do the paperwork right to get help. So we had no money. Nothing coming in, only what we'd saved. We took a bit of cash and bought tents and went to the campground.
I woke up that first morning feeling more at home than I'd felt in a long time. Sleeping there, with my head outside the tent and all those stars up above, only changing in place. All we had around us was what we needed, a few pots and pans and dishes and blankets and our notebooks and those tents that got threadbare long before our time outside was through. All we had around us what what we needed, which was each other.
See, I can't complain if my years are running out. I had something. I had all that. I was there. It was good. Sometimes it wasn't good. I'm here now. And every day, a thousand things go right and I don't take notice. Except I do. Except there's this gratitude.
Twenty years happened. Our daughters grew up and put themselves through college and went out to live their lives. Our family grew to include two grandchildren. Our borders were permeable. We slipped into each other's lives from time to time, but each in her own way, could only count on herself. No one else knew what she knew, where she was.
So, in some ways, I learned to let go. As you're supposed to do. I knew they knew things I'd never know. I didn't have to hold so tenaciously to the past where everything was something I recognized.
We learned to live faster. Computers blink the words across the screen so fast, we have to think quickly to keep up. We text and tweet and I'd like to drift into that thing older people do and say that what can be said quickly is not as good as what was unsaid in spaces between words by a campfire with rain threatening.
But I don't believe that. I think there's more to say. Less time to say it. Whatever time I have left, I don't intend to spend it looking back to something just because it was good. There's tomorrow and more importantly, there's today.
Lately, I'm thinking of impermanence and not thinking of it as a bad thing. I've always drug my heels on change. As in THINGS changing, mountains, trees, that sort of thing. They should stay. An old store that served us well. It should be there still. The cobblestones on the old road that led home. They paved it. A tragedy. An old jacket that I've worn for years. It's not something to toss away like it wasn't something.
These days though, I'm letting things fall, an old tree shedding leaves.
I figure if things go well, I've got another twenty years. That's a good long time. But not so long that I need so much. I remember twenty years ago.
Twenty years ago, which was yesterday, our family went out, not knowing where they were going. We lost the place we lived because Honey got crippled, couldn't work and didn't do the paperwork right to get help. So we had no money. Nothing coming in, only what we'd saved. We took a bit of cash and bought tents and went to the campground.
I woke up that first morning feeling more at home than I'd felt in a long time. Sleeping there, with my head outside the tent and all those stars up above, only changing in place. All we had around us was what we needed, a few pots and pans and dishes and blankets and our notebooks and those tents that got threadbare long before our time outside was through. All we had around us what what we needed, which was each other.
See, I can't complain if my years are running out. I had something. I had all that. I was there. It was good. Sometimes it wasn't good. I'm here now. And every day, a thousand things go right and I don't take notice. Except I do. Except there's this gratitude.
Twenty years happened. Our daughters grew up and put themselves through college and went out to live their lives. Our family grew to include two grandchildren. Our borders were permeable. We slipped into each other's lives from time to time, but each in her own way, could only count on herself. No one else knew what she knew, where she was.
So, in some ways, I learned to let go. As you're supposed to do. I knew they knew things I'd never know. I didn't have to hold so tenaciously to the past where everything was something I recognized.
We learned to live faster. Computers blink the words across the screen so fast, we have to think quickly to keep up. We text and tweet and I'd like to drift into that thing older people do and say that what can be said quickly is not as good as what was unsaid in spaces between words by a campfire with rain threatening.
But I don't believe that. I think there's more to say. Less time to say it. Whatever time I have left, I don't intend to spend it looking back to something just because it was good. There's tomorrow and more importantly, there's today.
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