tea and misery?

{photo by anna morosini}

The Past has started to shine with such a bright haze it is painful to look upon. These Autumn and Almost-Winter months have brought a haunting nostalgia upon me. More than anything, I want to go to my grandparent's house. But it was sold a year and a half ago, and while I am happy that its occupants are still with us and close by, I still mourn the house that was a second home. (It's because we're nearing the holiday season, I think. Holidays, autumn leaves, winter coats, certain books - all these things seem to make me want to go to my grandparent's. And perhaps to be a child again. I'm going to stop before I start crying.)

Since I've last updated I got my hair cut (finally) to about shoulder-length; I finished the 18th and last (sigh) series of Byker Grove; and I (somehow) got work twice a week cleaning someone's house. Huzzah for earning money for something I enjoy doing, which also involves minimum interaction with people!

I've been well and content, for the most part. Now that I am not obsessively trying to finish Byker Grove, I will (hopefully) be devoting more time to writing. I've not felt like writing the past couple months, but I feel more open to it these days. November I shall hopefully be working on my 1960s story and another story which I've never mentioned before.

Ugh, I am freezing cold today. I'm already wondering how I'll make it through the winter. All I want to do is hide under the covers and eat, which is bad. Really bad. I'm seeing a long winter full of tea and misery ahead. :P


Would anyone care to come hibernate with me?

-EDIT-

I don't know if anyone else cares, but Jenica does and that's all that matters. So here are two pictures of my hair, as it looks today. It's grown a bit since I got it cut, and it's not this curly every day.

The first picture is just my hair hanging loose, but in the second picture I pulled back the less-curly front part to display the glorious curls that live under them. :P Okay, so it really doesn't look that much different. I don't think my hair photographs well. (Also, the bathroom lights really bring out my highlights in the first one...)

October

I miss his voice speaking in the distance as I wandered through the shelves of worlds waiting to be discovered. (As was I.)


I played hide and seek with my heart in the aisles. I hid from confronting what I really wanted: him.

As October approaches again, my thoughts drift like dead leaves into a pile at one place: his feet.

(I wish...
Why didn't I...
It's better...
this way
right?)

Yes.
It's just October sweeping through me with an incisive wind of near-sadness & almost-regret; bringing to the surface all I let drop.
Soon I will be able to let these things fall into the opaque waters again; but first I must remember, I must embrace each recollection: the barbed and the sweet. (Each one has been gilded with a sheen of significance they do not deserve.)
I let the words of old diaries pour over my cheeks, I try on those secret smiles again. (They still fit.) But more often than not they wrinkle into winces and I remove them with a sigh.


These things: I want to remember them because Common Sense is standing nearby and soon she will shake her head, tell me to put them--to put him--out of my mind again.
Bravely, I'll uncurl my fingers, let these cherished things sink and nestle in the arms of the depths. (All the while knowing perfectly well I will fish them out again. Perhaps too soon...)

...Definitely too soon. Already I've retrieved one or two: just my favourites! Please allow me those! I dry them off and place them in a box. A mahogany box that keeps secrets as well as my own heart; they're safe here, yet accessible. I am content.

(I just ignore the arrows Common Sense aims at my head. Their blows have grown as soft as sighs over the years, anyway. For she knows I don't care, and any effort will be wasted. She keeps on trying, though, and I admire that. Still, I will not forget for her; I cannot just yet.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Been feeling nostalgic lately, for it was October last year that signaled the beginning of a strange and horrible year that would turn me into a girl I didn't recognize. (A girl that still sneers at me when I look closely at my reflection.)
Of course, this piece focuses on one of the highlights of the year, though one that caused as much stress as joy (a stranger who happened to be perfect). Here's hoping this next year heals instead of harms...

I am happy, though, for it finally feels and smells like autumn! My mother asked me the other week what autumn smells like. I said the first thing that came to mind: Dead leaves and blooming hopes.
Though it was random at the time, I now realize: my hopes are blooming. All sorts of wonderful things feel possible in the autumn. Which is a sentiment I expressed during spring, I believe. It's true for both seasons, though! No wonder they're my favourites.



{1st image found here, 2nd image is my favourite painting, 'Eleven AM' by Edward Hopper.}

A sudden barrage.

As I drove, scents and sounds flew in the open windows. With them, they carried keys. Keys to open the bureaus and chests where my memories sleep, folded and tucked away. Suddenly, the lids of these safeholds were thrust open, causing memories to scatter all over the streets behind and beside me. The air became foggy with remembrances. Memory after memory sped through my mind. Memories of houses belonging to great-aunts and uncles; of the rows of shops in Chincoteague; of playing with Lily on summer twilights; of gravel driveways leading to exciting places.
Numbly I sat and my hands automatically kept up their cradle-rocking motion on the steering wheel. I felt blind, a blanket of reminisces over my head, a Janis Ian song playing on a loop in my mind. {Lover, am I coming home again?} In turning every corner, new memories would spill out. The most random of remembrances: that time of Sunday wandering with my brothers and father; countless dinners out when the grandparents were in town; exploring a green expanse of grass with my sister.
As I neared home, they quieted down. They've dissipated by the time I've pulled into the driveway. My father who sat next to me was unaffected; he felt, heard, saw nothing. But it was all I could do not to stumble up the porch steps; weary, yet wishing the memories would come back in all their intensity. But everything was locked up again... except for one sole memory lingering centerstage. It was a new one, with a polished sheen and beguiling gleam in its eye. Twas the memory of this car ride and the not unwelcome evocation of feelings and experiences I’d nearly forgotten. I hung the shiny new memory where I could see it, not willing to put it away just yet. I wanted to ponder it for a while longer...




(This strange incident happened to me yesterday. I almost feel like I imagined it all, it was so out of the blue. It always amazes me how short the line connecting memories to scents and sounds (&c.) is. Such as, whenever I hear the sound of a large/long zipper being zipped, bam! I'm miles away, camping and lying in a tent listening to a member of the family opening the zippered door. Or I'll smell something and find myself cast years into the past. The mind and our five senses are wondrous things. Do you, dear readers, have any sound/smell associations?)

The Past

I've been thinking a lot about the past again. My family's past, specifically, as I've been making friends with my grandmother's "Heritage Scrapbook".

There is an entry in my journal that sums up the emotions I've been feeling lately, so I'm posting it, with a couple revisions and clarifications. (This entry was written last September when we were in KY for the first time in forever, to go to the Creation Museum and visit family also since a lot of my father's family comes from there.)

"We are in Kentucky. [...] We went to the annual [family] reunion. The highlight of this was seeing great-aunt D- (my grandfather's oldest sister). We set on her porch for a while, the porch of the house her (late) husband built! (Though, as she said, there have been improvements made.)
And as I sat there on the porch swing, I started thinking about old people & how many stories & memories they have & how they are our tie with the past. And once they die all their stories & memories die with them. One more tie with the past is severed.
It makes me wish I could just spend time with people like Aunt D- & my grandparents & ask them to tell me stories of their life.
Where are we without the past? I say I hate history [as a subject in school] - I don't. I hate textbook history. I don't just want to know about impersonal, large battles. I don't want to know about dreams of the nation. I want to know about the individual battles of every day. I want to know the personal dreams that the generations before me held. I don't want to lose our connection with them."


Does anyone else ever feel that way? It makes me wish I had a stronger inclination to be a biographer or something. Now I always make sure to pay close attention when my grandparents start telling a story. I don't think I remember often enough how blessed I am to still have all my grandparents alive.

As I mentioned, I've been looking a lot at my (maternal) grandmother's "Heritage Scrapbook" lately. My brothers and I spent the night at her and my grandfather's house yesterday because my parents and older sister were both gone. I adopted the scrapbook for the night so I could spend more time with it, hehe. I took some pictures of some of the photos and thought I'd share a few. (Sorry the quality isn't the greatest.)


This is my favourite picture in the album. It's my great-grandmother (or my mother's mother's mother :P) in the 1920's when she was dating my great-grandfather (the man next to her, obviously). The funny thing is, nobody remembers who the little girl on the right is. My grandmother asked my great-grandmother when she was still alive and she didn't remember either.
Still, I love this picture; it just screams 1920's and I love that era.

This is my great-grandfather's family. Yep, he had 11 siblings. I'm not sure when it's from... late 1910's or 1920's is my guess. He's in the back row, in the middle (he's the same fellow in the picture above).



And this is a picture of my grandmother and grandfather in the 1950's before they were married!

They were so cute. :)


Anyway, I hope everyone is having a lovely summer and has a great new week!

Thanks & Nostalgia

It’s hard to remember to be thankful when my grandparent’s house suddenly feels shrunk by the influx of relatives.
The air is thick with boisterous laughter and stories. Some funny, some unnecessary.
The floor is littered with spoken, inexorable opinions. (Forgotten for now but they will undoubtedly be picked up and shown around again.)
All I want to do is hide. (And I do, for a while, with my fellow hermit brothers.)

It’s hard to remember to be thankful when I think that this time next year this house that my grandparents have lived in the past 50 years will be sold and they will have moved to be closer to their only daughter (my mother). I’m going to miss this house so much; it is the place I love most next to my own home. Though I am glad they're moving closer...
It troubles me to see how much my grandfather has aged. How slow his movements are… how hunched he stands. (My grandmother seems the same as ever, gentle and full of helpful energy. But still, she's aging too.) I hate how old everyone is getting! Including myself.

It wasn’t until I lay in bed Thanksgiving night that I finally gave thanks to God for His many blessings. I think this year I am thankful for the memories most of all. I cannot contemplate a life without memories. Right now, especially, since remembrances of my grandparent's house are filling my head....

Watching shows like The Brady Bunch and Leave it to Beaver on cable. (Quite a treat for us!)

Anticipating Christmas in the basement with the cousins. (Wondering why the adults upstairs keep talking and drinking coffee while we can’t keep our eyes off the tree and the presents underneath it.)

Playing the ancient piano in the basement that hasn’t been in tune for several decades, at least.

Swinging on the swing on the slope (aka 'hill') in their backyard. Closing my eyes and pretending I was flying. Arguing with siblings and cousins whose turn it was. Sadness when most of us grew too big for it.

Blowing out the gas flame in the fireplace with fellow curly-haired mischievous cousin… The confession when the basement started to smell of gas. (No harm done, thankfully. We weren’t the first ones to do that, either. The constant blue flame proved too great a temptation for quite a few of our predecessors and successors.)

Laughter in the teeny kitchen, crazy games in the basement with my siblings… the list goes on.

My older-younger brother and I used to say that we would buy this house someday and live in it. That thought makes me sad now.

Moving on is bittersweet, I am truly realizing that now. Overall though, I am thankful for the wonderful times I had here and glad I can remember them with such happiness.

(I found this picture in my grandparent’s basement. It’s me, around 4 years old or so, on the aforementioned swing.)


{Sorry if this post isn't very coherent. I'm overflowing with contradictory emotions, reminiscences and tiredness. Oi.}

A younger me

Today we watched old home videos...
Curiously, I watched the three year old me on the screen.
I don't remember her!
We're the same person though.
Watching that curly-headed ragamuffin makes me wish I was a better person.
Have I let down that innocent little girl I was?
Am I anything like I thought I would be?
Did I even think about the future then?
I wish I could read the thoughts of the three year old me... or the seven, the ten... or even the twelve.
Sometimes, I wonder about myself....