What Mattered

It is a newborn, white-sky morning. Fog has blurred the edges, vanishing hills I know are there, shushing all of it, beguiling in its mystery, but promising nothing, asking only that we begin again.

While I slept, Republicans in our broken government shoved a measure forward that will sacrifice vital programs to give tax cuts to the rich. It was a rough week on many fronts, and now, as a brand-new Sunday slides in softly, I am turning to my writing in the mode of a pilgrim, searching for what wants to be said.

I guess we are really moving soon. It’s always possible that things will go sideways, but we are currently in escrow, a word that sounds like an egret and a crow, a word that swaggers and meanders, a word that means business but takes its time, a testy estuary of a word.  

In preparation, I have begun to seriously go through papers, memorabilia, and assorted photos, something I should have done long ago. Everyone accumulates this kind of stuff in the course of a lifetime, but I am particularly susceptible, and the piles and stashes are epic. In a way, it begs the question as to why I even need to keep this stuff, but in spite of Monte urging me on, I can’t seem to discard such things with any vigor or conviction. I have a long history of saving letters, drawings, clippings, and inexplicable miscellany that I must have thought would transform into treasure over the years or preserve a time in amber, and occasionally they do. But now they collectively constitute a maze of rabbit holes and emotional land mines that occupy me for hours and leave me exhausted. Even if somewhat sorted and streamlined, I can’t imagine my daughter having the time, patience, or desire to face these collections after I am gone; I should try to spare her this task.

The writings of my beloved dead exert the most powerful hold: my eloquent father in his pride or disappointment; the yearned-for voice of my sister; the anguished notes of my brother, scribbled while on dialysis. There are notebooks from the days of tending to my mother in the assisted living facility, the trembly printing of my uncle begging for a visit, and packets of old black and white photographs beseechingly familiar and remote. How can I part with all this?

And there is the documentation of my own life, inky cursive tales in journals that are often painful and cringeworthy. I’ve scoured through postcards and letters from friends, a folder titled “articles of interest”, certificates and documents attesting to momentous credentials and dubious attainments, and years of my own writerly efforts in weighty stacks of typed pages.

I am most surprised by the mementos from my teaching years: affectionate letters from students, snapshots of children on field trips, collages and clippings, posters, poems, a program from a play––the era of middle school world comes rushing back to me. We had fun, but there is tangible evidence here that I worked very hard, and also that my efforts were appreciated. I had forgotten how intense it was, and how authentic and significant were the connections with the kids. There are grown-ups in their forties now for whom I was an influence, and it humbles me.

In the back of the garage, I discover remnants of the life I lived right here with my husband and daughter. These are artifacts of pure joy, taking us beyond paper and pictures into the territory of Christmas decorations, Breyer horses, a forlorn stuffed kitty once dearly loved––and, stored here only recently––a car seat for a grandchild, and a potty.

But most of my accumulated wealth is words. And here I am, proliferating more of them. I write to process experience, and I write to figure out where I am going, and I write to document and remember, and I write to discover what I didn’t know was there, and I write to live more than once, and I write to keep people I have loved alive on the page, and I write to communicate and connect with other souls.

And so I approach with some reverence whatever words found their way into musty trunks and boxes to be dealt with now. I need to look once more and hear what they had to say. I will fill up on the love that they convey, and I will try to set the sad parts free. And I will do some culling, but there are those with which I cannot bear to part. Is it okay to keep a giant box of words in storage?

Remember that foggy morning I mentioned at the start of this blog post? I took a break and entered it, setting out on a hike with friends, and as we walked up the canyon, an owl surprised us, swooping from the lion oak, white wings against white sky, and for a long moment, all our words fluttered away.