Memory

Could there be anything more prosaic than picking up the afternoon mail?  Grey phalanx of metal boxes, all uniform in size, keyholes worn with years of wiggling keys to slot in--bills, flyers, junk mail, expected mail, unexpected mail.  Who could have predicted the power of a piece of expected mail on the topic of taxes?  I knew it was coming, vouchers to pay estimated taxes quarterly.  How utterly without interest!

So you can imagine how blindsided I felt by my reaction when I pulled the plain white envelop from its metal resting place.  Neatly written return address in New Mexico, neatly written address to me.  But the handwriting itself?  I hadn’t seen it in years or so it seemed. I felt a blow to my sternum, eyes filled with tears as memories flooded through me.  Here was the hand that sent me one of Elisabeth Barrett Browning’s love sonnets in a note in junior English, the same hand that wrote a lovely poem when the first pictures came back of earth from space detailing the swirling blues and greens, the sense of wonder of this new perspective of our home.  This was the writing that tightly packed the onion skin letters penned from Vietnam.   This hand composed love letters in Vienna, posted across the Atlantic to keep fragile connections alive.  

Over 52 years I’ve seen this particular hand, but not for years have I seen it on an envelope.  The ease of phone calls, email and Skype precluded the handwritten letter even as recently as an eighteen month tour in Afghanistan for USAID.  And once again we are separated-- by only 300 miles, but 300 nevertheless and for two years.  The best way to get the tax forms to me was by snail mail.  No big thing, right?  How easily we can be taken unawares and suddenly a half century of memory kaleidoscopes through the mind.  Tears of remembered joy, sorrow, regret, chagrin, embarrassment, the whole gamut, coursed down, dripped on the envelope. I heard footsteps behind me, approaching the mailboxes.  I hurriedly turned to the idling car, head ducked, mumbling a hello with choked voice and left.  

My husband is currently working in New Mexico, Land of Enchantment.  Enchantment indeed…

I've ordered a Kindle.  It should arrive today.  On this same day I've opened a book published in 1858  which my husband bought me to use in my production of Tea With ZaZa. It's old, small in size ornamented with a man, rifle over his shoulder walking off into snowy woods followed by what looks like golden retriever.  The book, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, is titled The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Every man his Own Boswell.  As I thumb through the detailed descriptions of life over 150 years ago, I'm struck by what seems a truism, though perhaps not, that one must have had a certain level of wealth, independence to  chronicle life by hand in such detail. 

 

Today I blog, email, post to FB details with ease though certainly my scribblings, cybernetic or not, cannot be compared to a Holmes or a Boswell.  But I am struck this late in the morning as I  neaten up the house how blessed I am by the gift of time to choose to sit at the computer and write my thoughts here.  If I had been in my 60's, of a working class background, decades ago, I would probably not be doing this.  To be a woman or man of letters required leisure, leisure bought with financial independence.

I shall keep my 1858 book out on a side table along side my Kindle to remind me from whence we've traveled and the future to which we rush headlong with enthusiasm and trepidation....

Monday Morning Musings

Enjoying my first cuppa this morning with the windows open, the sounds of songbirds.  One in particular keeps coming to a pile of natural plant detritus, picking up bits and zipping off to build a nest.

Lizards skitter across the patio, pausing to to do pushups and then rushing to the next pause.  A candle I bought at the Armadilla Works in Prescott is teasing my senses with swirls of orange and green and scents of citrus and mint.  My body creaks and I will workout soon to loosen up all the cranky bits and get the blood moving.  The air feels, even from inside, cool and crisp.  My kind of day.  Gratitude wells and I find myself saying thank you to a presence I doubt exists, but I was taught to be polite.

Last Monday, the day after a ten month journey of bringing a theatre project to fruition, I promised myself a week of sloughing off--scraping off the dead skin of months of working on two major projects, emptying the mind of 'should haves' and 'oh dear I forgots', preparing the soil of my creative self for new cultivation.  Well that promise lasted about two hours on last Monday and before I knew it,  I was tearing down the website and updating it, writing universities for their assistance in my next endeavor, writing press releases that won't be used for 6 months at least, and posting on The Artist's Path blog.  I did at least wait a full week to post on this blog, she writes, patting herself on the back with a phantom third hand.

A friend from grad school days showed up out of the blue to rescue me on Tuesday and we went off to Sedona to take in the beauty of nature run riot, good food, good conversation, and the magic of blue skies, red  rocks and rushing waters. 

Taxes are still due for Path and two grant reports, several financial reports I've promised the board and of course the ever present specter of now empty coffers and the necessity of filling them to produce Path 2013.  

Yesterday on the way down to see Road to Mecca  

at the The Theatre Artists Studio, I asked my companion if she would like to join me in robbing a bank to fund our respective theatre projects--we could split the take.  She said she was too busy and then I remembered a bank president friend of mine pointed out that I would be terribly disappointed at what I'd find in most vaults.  Bummer.  Back to the drawing board.

Need inspiration and it often comes with a walk in the woods.  So folks off to riparian area of Watson Woods here in Prescott, AZ to seek wisdom at the foot of a cottonwood.  Until  next time...