Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
My wandering heart needed this, both from you Suleika and your experiences and from Jedidiah and his. (The trailer of American Symphony has me spellbound) And now...me. I traveled back to the house where we lived for the year my dad was in Vietnam. I hadn't been on that land since 1970. I knew the roundabout where I crashed my sister's new bike, our house had a new number on it, and there was a sidewalk now making distance between the front yards and the parking areas out front. Each house now had a fence, eliminating the possibility of our wild hide and seek games of our time And then, torrential rain began to fall. I wept. I mean like crouching on the ground, sobbing, rocking, unable to speak, type of crying. They were the tears I had held in as instructed to do by my mother and father in 1969 right before Dad left for Vietnam. I carry this year with me in my cells still.
Nov 12, 2023·edited Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
I will count the moments until this is released. The beauty of the trailer is just what I need on this beautiful Sunday morning.
I often wonder what life would have looked like if I had understood that the contrasts of life - occurring at the same time - is simply life. That fighting to get the bad to go away is not the answer - and in fact is impossible. The simple and basic truth that life is both and all emotions and feelings at the same time - is the secret sauce. Congratulations to giving birth to this creation celebrating that truth and I am sure -so much more !
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
It was about 1975 and I was leaving 103 St. Marks Place. It was easy to rent apartments then and we found on at 207 West 11th Street. The walls were painted purple, and it was way up on the 6th floor. Looking out I could see the Woman's House of Detention, but could not hear the cries. The view was pretty clear, the noice from St. Vincents Hospital constant as ambulances sped by, Things changed, we split, and adopted my daughter--and raised her in the apartment. AiDS, The World Trade Center came and gone. I left and she stayed- I could not get back- in my memory it was home. And then i visited- different from hundreds to thousands. I saw young people on the stairs, no more Bob, Crazy Alice and Murray, The door opened to the apartment vestiges of a Police lock-
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
The trailer reminded me that we never know what is actually happening behind peoples’ facades. Here’s Jon, his delightful, exuberant self, at a highly successful moment, but behind that, full of concern for you as you are truly suffering. It is an honor that you would share this chapter with us.
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
I had the pleasure of seeing American Symphony 2 weeks ago at the Va Film Festival. It was the most uplifting experience! You may have heard my voice as one of the 1,000 there that shouted “we love you Suleika” as Jon held his phone up for a very large group selfie. And then he played for us! What a night.
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
I lived in Lynn, Mass from age 7 to 18. In memory it was a big, beautiful Georgian home, surrounded by lots of trees. A big winding porch in the front of the house with thick curved windows and mum putting flower boxes all along the front porch filled with red geraniums. Mum and dad loved flowers in the front and back of our home. In memory it was big, elegant, nothing out of place and a very lonely home for me to live in. Many years later, when I was around 30 years old, my childhood friend, Joan, her husband and I went to my old home, rang the doorbell. When the then present owner opened I explained I used to live here many years ago and could we come in to see it now. The present owner was welcoming and we all walked in and it was shocking. My mum, while living here kept everything neat almost to the point of looking like a home that wasn’t fully lived in. Elegant furniture, antique like painted walls, a winding front staircase, with a huge mirror as you walked down the stairs, showing a big stained glass wall brow, and grandfather clock on the second landing. Fireplaces in each room. Now it was a dump! Garbage thrown in each fireplace, Everything a mess, and painful for me to walk in each room. I don’t know how I managed to walk through the entire house of three floors because I was crying through this entire experience. We thanked the current resident for allowing us in, and as bad as my memories were of growing up in that house, I always remembered it as beautiful, elegant, looking unloved in. That day I felt sometimes you can’t go back again.
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
Oh. My. Goodness. I LOVE the trailer. It made me cry. Can’t wait to see the film on Nov 29. Counting the days. Bless both you and Jon. Congrats on his latest Grammy nomination.
Also love everything about your post. Happy to learn about Jed and his work. Such great questions you raise. Lots to think on. I appreciate you so.
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
When I was the in the army a boy I knew (I’ll call him O) went home on leave and decided to try to repair the electricity in his house. He got electrocuted and died. I did not know the boy very well. He was a friend of someone whom I served in the army with and I met him once or twice. I was horrified by this event and have never forgotten the irony of it. The boy was on leave from fighting a war in Lebanon and was coming home where he was supposed to be safe only to die. I am sure this boy’s parents were worried about their son getting hurt or killed in the war and yet he died in the safety of his home.
A few years ago the people I served in the army with had a reunion. One of the members of our group was unable to attend and sent a recent photo of himself and his friend M. I was shocked because for years I had remembered that M was the friend who had died. I told my army mates of my misremembering and most of them had forgotten the story. Those who did recollect it remembered it happening to correct person.
I am not sure why I misremembered the identity of the person who died. M is alive and well. He had been a member of our army group for a few months until he dropped out and joined another branch of the army. Perhaps it helped me to ascribe the tragedy to someone I knew rather to someone I had only met once or twice. Nevertheless, regardless of who it happened to the lesson remains the same, more often than not we worry about the wrong thing.
Earlier this week, one of my older sisters sent me an article written by a woman who grew up in an alcoholic family. All the elements of that all too common life were there: the violence, the instability, the loss of innocence, the interruption of normal growth and experience. My sister asked me if I could relate, as our father was an alcoholic. My answer was a definite no. I could not relate to the fear, the insecurity, or the shame. As the youngest of three sisters, I was six when my father left. Furthest from ground zero and protected by what my sister likes to say was my ability to “check out”. I did witness my father striking my brave and strong mother once, but I told myself it was a storm that sent me to my parents’ room. It was a storm, the unleashing of rage, and it left dysfunction and loss in its’ wake. My sisters and I are still picking up the pieces of those years.
Too, for years I’ve wondered why my mind chose to not remember what my sisters can not forget. I’ve wondered why I have so few memories of school, of moments my friends still recall. What I do know is that twice in the first six months of my life, my grandparents cared for me when my mother was hospitalized for severe postpartum depression. Every holiday and every summer until I was twelve, I also spent with my grandparents. I grew up in their love. In fact, with all my heart I believe they saved me so that I could love someday.
Looking back, I know that what was painful was in such stark contrast to my real home, the home my grandparents made for me, that I disassociated from it. What I remember is the love and comfort and safety of my grandparents’, their home and the small town I was free ( in the 1960’s) to wander on my own.
I am thankful I was able to separate myself from the turmoil in our home. How I wish , though, that I had been fully engaged in high school. I was on the outside looking in. A little girl, lost.
Now, I’m here. I’m wide awake. I feel everything. The shattering loss of divorce and betrayal, the world on fire, the heartache I can not turn away from. Yet always, always, my heart will land on the side of what is joyful, true and kind. In doing so, I remember the most essential thing. That love will find a way. The way was my grandparents’ sacrificial love. That I will never forget.
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
I walked a route this morning that took me to where I first moved when I came to Chicago and met my husband, whom I've recently lost. I felt the exhilaration and excitement of being in love at that time; how thrilling it was. I indulged the memories like floating high on a kite in a blue sky. Now I carry the heavy weight of loss, age, and passage of time - but with a deeper realization of what I hold.
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
The prompt for today is timely. I will take this day of raking a forest full of leaves to let my heart do its‘ work. So often, when my hands or body are engaged, my heart goes deep and my mind, well, it tries to take note.
I’ve been reading this journal long before I became a member. Too, I’ve listened to many interviews both you and Jon, together and separately, have given. Then, the trailer for this gift you are offering the world. Like others here, I’ve watched it several times and never without tears of JOY and wonder.
I’ve heard Jon say “ We love you, even if we don’t know you”. I will say, I’ve taken you both into my heart. In the last year and a half I have faced the loneliest snd darkest period of my life. Your love for one another, your courage, Suleika , Jon’s contagious JOY, have been a light for me. You have given me so much HOPE. Not hope that I will ever have such a deeply connected relationship, but hope that is a promise. A prayer.
In the world we will know tribulation, but LOVE, the love of God made manifest, made flesh and blood, in you, in Jon, in all the gifts of sacrificial love, that is how we overcome.
Love always has the last word. Isn’t that glorious? Thank you so very much for the courage it took to make Symphony and the generosity of sharing it with the world.
Nov 12, 2023·edited Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
Prompt 269. A Temple to Entropy by Jedidiah Jenkins
Write about something misremembered—about something that did not stay as it was, or maybe was never what you remembered at all. Explore where fact overlapped with feeling, where imagination or exaggeration filled in the gaps, and why.
The other day I was thinking about how far I walked to school when I was in kindergarten. My memory tells me it was far for a small kid, like maybe, two miles. Along the way I would usually get side-tracked. One time I left the path and explored an undeveloped piece of land that looked like a mini forest. Lots of birds! And bugs. I arrived late at school and the nuns were not happy.
Another time I left the path to head into town to look around. I do not recall the faces of any of the people I encountered, but I do remember the layout of the tiny town and I can still see the Rexall Drug pharmacy where I would return soda bottles, collect 12 cents, and buy the latest Thor comic book.
One time, on the way home, I saw a huge rock, or maybe it was a small boulder. It was big. I thought I would pull or push it down the gully upon which it rested. No luck pushing, so I repositioned myself downhill and pulled it. That worked! But my leg was trapped by the huge thing as I fell into the gully with my head angled down but facing up. I felt the blood rush into my head as I wondered how the hell I was going to get out of this one. I struggled for what seemed like an entire afternoon to free my leg, but I could not budge the damn thing. Now and then I would turn my head back and look for anyone to give me a hand. Of course, everything appeared up-side-down. Finally, a mail man saw me and rushed over to help. He could not lift the rock but he could push it up the incline to free my leg. Ah, I was consumed with gratitude and went straight home.
Inspired by this prompt, I looked up the actual distance using Google maps. It is only 1.1 miles. Seemed farther..ha!
Nov 12, 2023·edited Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
I read all three of Peter Jenkin's books and The Walk West with Barbara back in the 1970s. It captured my imagination and my love of adventure. I have strong memories of reading those books and the feelings they produced in me. I recently read Barbara's memoir and wasn't exactly shocked but it changed the way I remember that trilogy. I have been anxious to read Jedidiah's books too. During the time I read Peter Jenkin's books I was a young hippie living in a tiny rented house in a tiny town in Oregon, up in the forest in a town of 200. You couldn't see any other houses..just trees and blue sky. If I walked a mile down the road, there was an old little grocery with gas pumps in front. It was a favorite place to hang out and catch up with other hippies in the area...I'd take my dog Moonshadow down there...a beautiful Malamute that had been kicked off a ranch for being a "cow chaser." I'd get a can of refried beans to make a cheap meal and if I had some spare change, and ice cold Coke. I took my husband there a few years ago. The roof was caved in and had moss covering the shingles. A gas pump nozzle was laying on the ground. The place was littered with leaves. I felt as if I was actually living a scene from the movie The Time Machine or Back to the Future. I felt sad as I remembered my young self enjoying the "vintageness" of this place so long ago without realizing that one day it would be boarded up, crumbling and abandoned. Seeing it that way replaced the memories I had of it when it was full of life, laughter, and free love. My original memory of that store is unlike the memories of the man who worked the cash register every day, and had distain for the hippies who hung around all afternoon. My memories of reading Peter and Barbara Jenkin's books are different from other readers, who may not have any desire to take a walk clear across our country. And all of our memories are flawed in some way...but they are ours. The other day I saw the trailer for American Symphony and shared it to my Facebook timeline. I cannot WAIT to see the entire film.
Nov 13, 2023·edited Nov 13, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad
Excellent prompt. Much to think on.
A word comes to mind that today I heard during a talk I attended:
Forgettery.
The quote was "it pays to have a good forgettery." From a book by Carl Sandberg -- From The People, Yes.
I too am fascinated by how memory morphs in our retelling (beautifully said, Suleika).
I think of a time when I had a horrible fall when I was maybe 8 or so - and my arm was a twisted mess. My dad, who barely paid any attention to me, gave me more attention than he ever did that day. He drove me in his grey checker to Coney Island hospital -- and I remember no pain. I only remember him talking to me to distract me, "if the arm is broken you get an ice cream sundae, if sprained, an ice cream cone." This meant love to me. Attention.
I think back now... did he really say that? Did I imagine it to take my mind off pain. It was so out of character for him. It seems like a silly moment suddenly -- but that is only one example of how I know my mind protected me as a child.
All I thought of was ice cream sundaes and his love. Much later, I remembered while we were waiting in the ER, a man was brought in on a stretcher with a bloody knife in his back. We pretended not to see it. My dad held my hand (or did he?) but I remember sitting there shaking and hoping my arm was broken so he would buy me an ice cream sundae. (p.s. it was broken, I don't remember getting the sundae, but what is definitely true is he signed my cast, "love, dad.") I saved the cast for a long time.
This prompt made respect memory and "forgettery." Peace, Susan
Nov 12, 2023·edited Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
My parents built the house I lived most of my childhood in. I have good and bad memories of living there. My parents eventually got divorced and my Mom sold the house and we moved to a different part of town. The house is still there and being lived in. This makes me happy. I got brave enough to go to the door and talk to the young lady who answered. I told her my parents built the house and I was wondering if there was any chance I could see inside again. I am not sure I would let some stranger come in but she did. I did not tell her that it seemed so small now. We were a family of 6 kids, 2 adults and one small bathroom. The house had been totally remodeled and I still loved every minute I was there. She took me to the basement where my sister and I had shared a bedroom. That is now their family room. Our furnace and laundry room was unfinished back then but now it’s a beautiful bathroom and laundry room. What used to be a large linen closet in the hall on the main floor really surprised me. It’s now a door leading to a staircase, going to a third level. She said I could go up and see but I said I had taken up enough of her time. In the time I was there, my entire childhood came back. But I quickly brushed aside the bad memories and remembered the wonderful ones.
Nov 12, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
Suleika, the trailer for American Symphony is beautiful. It brought me to tears this morning. Thank you for your vulnerability and sharing these moments with us. It makes me feel less alone.
My wandering heart needed this, both from you Suleika and your experiences and from Jedidiah and his. (The trailer of American Symphony has me spellbound) And now...me. I traveled back to the house where we lived for the year my dad was in Vietnam. I hadn't been on that land since 1970. I knew the roundabout where I crashed my sister's new bike, our house had a new number on it, and there was a sidewalk now making distance between the front yards and the parking areas out front. Each house now had a fence, eliminating the possibility of our wild hide and seek games of our time And then, torrential rain began to fall. I wept. I mean like crouching on the ground, sobbing, rocking, unable to speak, type of crying. They were the tears I had held in as instructed to do by my mother and father in 1969 right before Dad left for Vietnam. I carry this year with me in my cells still.
I will count the moments until this is released. The beauty of the trailer is just what I need on this beautiful Sunday morning.
I often wonder what life would have looked like if I had understood that the contrasts of life - occurring at the same time - is simply life. That fighting to get the bad to go away is not the answer - and in fact is impossible. The simple and basic truth that life is both and all emotions and feelings at the same time - is the secret sauce. Congratulations to giving birth to this creation celebrating that truth and I am sure -so much more !
It was about 1975 and I was leaving 103 St. Marks Place. It was easy to rent apartments then and we found on at 207 West 11th Street. The walls were painted purple, and it was way up on the 6th floor. Looking out I could see the Woman's House of Detention, but could not hear the cries. The view was pretty clear, the noice from St. Vincents Hospital constant as ambulances sped by, Things changed, we split, and adopted my daughter--and raised her in the apartment. AiDS, The World Trade Center came and gone. I left and she stayed- I could not get back- in my memory it was home. And then i visited- different from hundreds to thousands. I saw young people on the stairs, no more Bob, Crazy Alice and Murray, The door opened to the apartment vestiges of a Police lock-
The trailer reminded me that we never know what is actually happening behind peoples’ facades. Here’s Jon, his delightful, exuberant self, at a highly successful moment, but behind that, full of concern for you as you are truly suffering. It is an honor that you would share this chapter with us.
I had the pleasure of seeing American Symphony 2 weeks ago at the Va Film Festival. It was the most uplifting experience! You may have heard my voice as one of the 1,000 there that shouted “we love you Suleika” as Jon held his phone up for a very large group selfie. And then he played for us! What a night.
I lived in Lynn, Mass from age 7 to 18. In memory it was a big, beautiful Georgian home, surrounded by lots of trees. A big winding porch in the front of the house with thick curved windows and mum putting flower boxes all along the front porch filled with red geraniums. Mum and dad loved flowers in the front and back of our home. In memory it was big, elegant, nothing out of place and a very lonely home for me to live in. Many years later, when I was around 30 years old, my childhood friend, Joan, her husband and I went to my old home, rang the doorbell. When the then present owner opened I explained I used to live here many years ago and could we come in to see it now. The present owner was welcoming and we all walked in and it was shocking. My mum, while living here kept everything neat almost to the point of looking like a home that wasn’t fully lived in. Elegant furniture, antique like painted walls, a winding front staircase, with a huge mirror as you walked down the stairs, showing a big stained glass wall brow, and grandfather clock on the second landing. Fireplaces in each room. Now it was a dump! Garbage thrown in each fireplace, Everything a mess, and painful for me to walk in each room. I don’t know how I managed to walk through the entire house of three floors because I was crying through this entire experience. We thanked the current resident for allowing us in, and as bad as my memories were of growing up in that house, I always remembered it as beautiful, elegant, looking unloved in. That day I felt sometimes you can’t go back again.
Oh. My. Goodness. I LOVE the trailer. It made me cry. Can’t wait to see the film on Nov 29. Counting the days. Bless both you and Jon. Congrats on his latest Grammy nomination.
Also love everything about your post. Happy to learn about Jed and his work. Such great questions you raise. Lots to think on. I appreciate you so.
Wishing all good things for you guys.
When I was the in the army a boy I knew (I’ll call him O) went home on leave and decided to try to repair the electricity in his house. He got electrocuted and died. I did not know the boy very well. He was a friend of someone whom I served in the army with and I met him once or twice. I was horrified by this event and have never forgotten the irony of it. The boy was on leave from fighting a war in Lebanon and was coming home where he was supposed to be safe only to die. I am sure this boy’s parents were worried about their son getting hurt or killed in the war and yet he died in the safety of his home.
A few years ago the people I served in the army with had a reunion. One of the members of our group was unable to attend and sent a recent photo of himself and his friend M. I was shocked because for years I had remembered that M was the friend who had died. I told my army mates of my misremembering and most of them had forgotten the story. Those who did recollect it remembered it happening to correct person.
I am not sure why I misremembered the identity of the person who died. M is alive and well. He had been a member of our army group for a few months until he dropped out and joined another branch of the army. Perhaps it helped me to ascribe the tragedy to someone I knew rather to someone I had only met once or twice. Nevertheless, regardless of who it happened to the lesson remains the same, more often than not we worry about the wrong thing.
Earlier this week, one of my older sisters sent me an article written by a woman who grew up in an alcoholic family. All the elements of that all too common life were there: the violence, the instability, the loss of innocence, the interruption of normal growth and experience. My sister asked me if I could relate, as our father was an alcoholic. My answer was a definite no. I could not relate to the fear, the insecurity, or the shame. As the youngest of three sisters, I was six when my father left. Furthest from ground zero and protected by what my sister likes to say was my ability to “check out”. I did witness my father striking my brave and strong mother once, but I told myself it was a storm that sent me to my parents’ room. It was a storm, the unleashing of rage, and it left dysfunction and loss in its’ wake. My sisters and I are still picking up the pieces of those years.
Too, for years I’ve wondered why my mind chose to not remember what my sisters can not forget. I’ve wondered why I have so few memories of school, of moments my friends still recall. What I do know is that twice in the first six months of my life, my grandparents cared for me when my mother was hospitalized for severe postpartum depression. Every holiday and every summer until I was twelve, I also spent with my grandparents. I grew up in their love. In fact, with all my heart I believe they saved me so that I could love someday.
Looking back, I know that what was painful was in such stark contrast to my real home, the home my grandparents made for me, that I disassociated from it. What I remember is the love and comfort and safety of my grandparents’, their home and the small town I was free ( in the 1960’s) to wander on my own.
I am thankful I was able to separate myself from the turmoil in our home. How I wish , though, that I had been fully engaged in high school. I was on the outside looking in. A little girl, lost.
Now, I’m here. I’m wide awake. I feel everything. The shattering loss of divorce and betrayal, the world on fire, the heartache I can not turn away from. Yet always, always, my heart will land on the side of what is joyful, true and kind. In doing so, I remember the most essential thing. That love will find a way. The way was my grandparents’ sacrificial love. That I will never forget.
I walked a route this morning that took me to where I first moved when I came to Chicago and met my husband, whom I've recently lost. I felt the exhilaration and excitement of being in love at that time; how thrilling it was. I indulged the memories like floating high on a kite in a blue sky. Now I carry the heavy weight of loss, age, and passage of time - but with a deeper realization of what I hold.
The prompt for today is timely. I will take this day of raking a forest full of leaves to let my heart do its‘ work. So often, when my hands or body are engaged, my heart goes deep and my mind, well, it tries to take note.
I’ve been reading this journal long before I became a member. Too, I’ve listened to many interviews both you and Jon, together and separately, have given. Then, the trailer for this gift you are offering the world. Like others here, I’ve watched it several times and never without tears of JOY and wonder.
I’ve heard Jon say “ We love you, even if we don’t know you”. I will say, I’ve taken you both into my heart. In the last year and a half I have faced the loneliest snd darkest period of my life. Your love for one another, your courage, Suleika , Jon’s contagious JOY, have been a light for me. You have given me so much HOPE. Not hope that I will ever have such a deeply connected relationship, but hope that is a promise. A prayer.
In the world we will know tribulation, but LOVE, the love of God made manifest, made flesh and blood, in you, in Jon, in all the gifts of sacrificial love, that is how we overcome.
Love always has the last word. Isn’t that glorious? Thank you so very much for the courage it took to make Symphony and the generosity of sharing it with the world.
Keep shining, everyone!
Prompt 269. A Temple to Entropy by Jedidiah Jenkins
Write about something misremembered—about something that did not stay as it was, or maybe was never what you remembered at all. Explore where fact overlapped with feeling, where imagination or exaggeration filled in the gaps, and why.
The other day I was thinking about how far I walked to school when I was in kindergarten. My memory tells me it was far for a small kid, like maybe, two miles. Along the way I would usually get side-tracked. One time I left the path and explored an undeveloped piece of land that looked like a mini forest. Lots of birds! And bugs. I arrived late at school and the nuns were not happy.
Another time I left the path to head into town to look around. I do not recall the faces of any of the people I encountered, but I do remember the layout of the tiny town and I can still see the Rexall Drug pharmacy where I would return soda bottles, collect 12 cents, and buy the latest Thor comic book.
One time, on the way home, I saw a huge rock, or maybe it was a small boulder. It was big. I thought I would pull or push it down the gully upon which it rested. No luck pushing, so I repositioned myself downhill and pulled it. That worked! But my leg was trapped by the huge thing as I fell into the gully with my head angled down but facing up. I felt the blood rush into my head as I wondered how the hell I was going to get out of this one. I struggled for what seemed like an entire afternoon to free my leg, but I could not budge the damn thing. Now and then I would turn my head back and look for anyone to give me a hand. Of course, everything appeared up-side-down. Finally, a mail man saw me and rushed over to help. He could not lift the rock but he could push it up the incline to free my leg. Ah, I was consumed with gratitude and went straight home.
Inspired by this prompt, I looked up the actual distance using Google maps. It is only 1.1 miles. Seemed farther..ha!
I read all three of Peter Jenkin's books and The Walk West with Barbara back in the 1970s. It captured my imagination and my love of adventure. I have strong memories of reading those books and the feelings they produced in me. I recently read Barbara's memoir and wasn't exactly shocked but it changed the way I remember that trilogy. I have been anxious to read Jedidiah's books too. During the time I read Peter Jenkin's books I was a young hippie living in a tiny rented house in a tiny town in Oregon, up in the forest in a town of 200. You couldn't see any other houses..just trees and blue sky. If I walked a mile down the road, there was an old little grocery with gas pumps in front. It was a favorite place to hang out and catch up with other hippies in the area...I'd take my dog Moonshadow down there...a beautiful Malamute that had been kicked off a ranch for being a "cow chaser." I'd get a can of refried beans to make a cheap meal and if I had some spare change, and ice cold Coke. I took my husband there a few years ago. The roof was caved in and had moss covering the shingles. A gas pump nozzle was laying on the ground. The place was littered with leaves. I felt as if I was actually living a scene from the movie The Time Machine or Back to the Future. I felt sad as I remembered my young self enjoying the "vintageness" of this place so long ago without realizing that one day it would be boarded up, crumbling and abandoned. Seeing it that way replaced the memories I had of it when it was full of life, laughter, and free love. My original memory of that store is unlike the memories of the man who worked the cash register every day, and had distain for the hippies who hung around all afternoon. My memories of reading Peter and Barbara Jenkin's books are different from other readers, who may not have any desire to take a walk clear across our country. And all of our memories are flawed in some way...but they are ours. The other day I saw the trailer for American Symphony and shared it to my Facebook timeline. I cannot WAIT to see the entire film.
Excellent prompt. Much to think on.
A word comes to mind that today I heard during a talk I attended:
Forgettery.
The quote was "it pays to have a good forgettery." From a book by Carl Sandberg -- From The People, Yes.
I too am fascinated by how memory morphs in our retelling (beautifully said, Suleika).
I think of a time when I had a horrible fall when I was maybe 8 or so - and my arm was a twisted mess. My dad, who barely paid any attention to me, gave me more attention than he ever did that day. He drove me in his grey checker to Coney Island hospital -- and I remember no pain. I only remember him talking to me to distract me, "if the arm is broken you get an ice cream sundae, if sprained, an ice cream cone." This meant love to me. Attention.
I think back now... did he really say that? Did I imagine it to take my mind off pain. It was so out of character for him. It seems like a silly moment suddenly -- but that is only one example of how I know my mind protected me as a child.
All I thought of was ice cream sundaes and his love. Much later, I remembered while we were waiting in the ER, a man was brought in on a stretcher with a bloody knife in his back. We pretended not to see it. My dad held my hand (or did he?) but I remember sitting there shaking and hoping my arm was broken so he would buy me an ice cream sundae. (p.s. it was broken, I don't remember getting the sundae, but what is definitely true is he signed my cast, "love, dad.") I saved the cast for a long time.
This prompt made respect memory and "forgettery." Peace, Susan
My parents built the house I lived most of my childhood in. I have good and bad memories of living there. My parents eventually got divorced and my Mom sold the house and we moved to a different part of town. The house is still there and being lived in. This makes me happy. I got brave enough to go to the door and talk to the young lady who answered. I told her my parents built the house and I was wondering if there was any chance I could see inside again. I am not sure I would let some stranger come in but she did. I did not tell her that it seemed so small now. We were a family of 6 kids, 2 adults and one small bathroom. The house had been totally remodeled and I still loved every minute I was there. She took me to the basement where my sister and I had shared a bedroom. That is now their family room. Our furnace and laundry room was unfinished back then but now it’s a beautiful bathroom and laundry room. What used to be a large linen closet in the hall on the main floor really surprised me. It’s now a door leading to a staircase, going to a third level. She said I could go up and see but I said I had taken up enough of her time. In the time I was there, my entire childhood came back. But I quickly brushed aside the bad memories and remembered the wonderful ones.
Suleika, the trailer for American Symphony is beautiful. It brought me to tears this morning. Thank you for your vulnerability and sharing these moments with us. It makes me feel less alone.