To preface this story I must reveal a truth about myself, a neurosis that I have fostered for many years. If you have spent more than ten minutes with me you have probably seen me pull out my calendar. I keep it with me always, it remembers everything! As a writer I am always in need of a handy place to keep some notes, they all spill out onto the pages of this abused and beloved calendar. It contains the endless list of books I need to read, quotes collected, recipes, addresses, directions, notes from sunday school classes, literature classes, presidency meetings, sacrament meetings, Dr. Who.
I record my goals, lists for the grocery store, where I went today, where I'll go tomorrow, the hours I worked, the miles I've driven, how many times I've been to Costa Vida this month. I write it all down in this record of Elizabeth. I save them when they are filled on the same shelf as my journals. What was I doing on January 21st of 2010, you can find it in last years calendar.
I took Stinker to "the LaundryMutt," worked from 6:45 to close at the Hastings, and noted that a new episode of "The Mentalist" would be on that night. I worked 25 hours that week and turned in my Avon order by the following Monday.
Crazy right?
Maybe not. . .
My great Grandma on my Mamma's side was called Olive. I met her a handful of times before she passed away but I was pretty young, I don't remember much. Several months ago, maybe a year and more by now, Mom and I took a jaunt down to SLC with Grandma Lois to visit "the Aunties," my Grandma's sisters. Sitting in a room (walls lined with books, of course) with Olive's daughters, her granddaughter, and her memory, my Grandma passed me an old note book that had belonged to her Mother. It felt like buried treasure in my hands, it smelled like a thrift store. With worn edges and a surface polished smooth from the friction within the walls of a prepared lady's purse, I recognized what this note book must be.
Tenderly I spread open the scribble filled pages. There it was, proof positive that I am not the random assemblance of inappropriate outbursts and DNA that I once believed myself to be. I come from somewhere, there are others like me! Or, rather, I am like them, like Olive, my great grandma.
In her calendar she had made a long list of all of the books she had read that year, how many times she had read them before, who had recommended them, what she would read next. She had taken notes from a stake conference meeting, written her shopping list, included notes about the women she was assigned to visit-teach. In a smaller notebook she had written a detailed account of a family road trip including miles driven each day, stops made, items purchased, and random comments from her husband about the general condition of the roads. Brilliant!
Though it was a small silly connection I felt tied to that wonderful woman in a deep and intimate way. All my life I have wondered about, pencil in hand, recording the scenes unfolding around me, never knowing why. It is so sweet to me to know that, at least in part, it was simply within me. To write, to relate, to tell a story, that desire was passed down to me through blood and tiny proteins breaking and recombining infinitely, but remaining in tact just enough to encode a message that would cause a single desire to persist over generations. I wonder if she also shared my callus on her third finger. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment