WHO WANTS TO START FIRST?

This week brings to a close the Fall session of “A Course in Memories: Writing Your Legacy,” an Adult Education course held at Williamson High School, which I teach every Monday from 4:30-6pm. It has been both an honor and a pleasure, and I look forward to returning again in the fall.


Teach is a strong word in this instance, as there really are no instructions offered. We are more voyeurs, listening to the lives of each student who cares to share their story with us, their classmates. Family albums have been spread across tables, pictures ripped from living room walls, and CD home movies played on my laptop. We truly become part of each other lives. I’m not surprised long lasting friendships are formed in that corner classroom.

Putting their memories and experiences to paper is an exercise in poignancy and tenderness. We are often moved to tears and sometimes laugh until we realize its time to go. Learning a history of someone’s life, glimpsing briefly into the edges of their hearts has been rewarding beyond words. Wars, romance, heartbreak, death; its all there, and then some.

Some students from the Spring session have returned to continue their books, which is a personal thrill for me. Hearing their stories read aloud is akin to watching a serial movie every week. I can’t wait to hear the next chapter. There is never any pressure to share what they’ve written, but no one ever seems to mind. Sometimes the information gleaned from their memories is personal and meant only for the eyes of their intended recipient. That idea is respected and encouraged. There seems to be a level of trust in the room, however, and long held secrets and private hurts are sometimes uncovered, surprising even themselves as they read it aloud. Voices hushed, tinged with sadness or loud with humor, we never know what we are going to hear – and that’s what is so rewarding about this class. There is no “wrong” way to do this.

Every week I hand them a list of ‘triggers,’ questions to give rise to a memory either long buried or close to the surface. It’s really like the proverbial “box of chocolates;” we never know what we’re going to get. But I know I am not alone in my excitement when I pose the same question that starts every class.

“Ok, who wants to start first?”

SMELLS LIKE FIFTH GRADE

I am constantly in awe of the human brain and the memories it is able to store. The minutia of thought and emotions, a mere smell or quick turn of my head can evoke the most vivid of memories or recollection of a time gone by in my short and relatively uneventful life.


Opening the door this beautiful sunny morning, I let loose the dogs for their morning ritual of running around the fenced in yard. A giant playpen, it is where they play with each other as they chase and jump and playfully maul. Even though they are all different shapes and sizes, it is a way of expressing their love for each other. One will jump on the back of the other, trying to nip at their collars, or run around to the front, tugging on their ears. It is never done in anger, and if they could laugh, I am sure there would be large guffaws and back slapping as they race round the yard, doing lap after lap of their own Indy 500.

They learn from each other and they teach each other.

As I opened the screen door, I breathe deep the air. It is a clear, winter morning and the wind has died down. After a few days of wind and snow, the grassy area is replaced with the hard packed white blanket on which they will run.

But it is the smell of the air this day that holds my attention and catches my breath, for it is a smell that I have breathed in once before, seemingly eons ago. It brought back a memory in an instant that brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye.

It was a winter day in 1964 and I was in fifth grade. I was the new kid in school, yet again, for my family moved a lot. We never left New York State, but my father’s job required he manage different petroleum distribution plants. The hours were long and it seemed like he was always working, so living as close to the plant as we could was a concession my parents always made.

Although it was hard to say goodbye to friends I had made over the years, I knew that it was really a good thing for me. It taught me how to talk to anyone and to get the heart of the matter of someone in order to be their friend.

This time around, we had moved very close to the elementary school I attended. It was a move that suited me, for I loved going to school. Our house was at the top of the hill and the school was located in the gully below. Every morning I would open the back door of the kitchen and walk down the hill to be joined by the students milling around outside. We lived so close I could hear the kids laughing and yelling, playing tag or throwing snow balls.

Opening the door one sunny, winter morning, I caught the whiff of the cold breeze wafting up from the gully, bringing the voices of the children waiting for the door to opening down below. It is the smell that has stayed with me all these years and was awakened this morning, buried deep within my psyche in safekeeping for when it was called forth once again.

They saw me and I saw them. “Hey! Eileen! Come on!” they yelled and I smiled to myself that I was welcomed and loved, for that was not always the case. 

I looked towards the dogs as they circled back around to the doorway, content they had completed their laps and ready for a kiss and a cookie.

Letting them in, I lingered just a moment longer as I breathed deep the memory of being a 5th grader in the wintertime, filling my lungs and my mind once again with its sweet fragrance.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW

I had an English professor who began every one of his creative writing classes with the phrase “Upon further review.”

It was an exercise to encourage us to take a second look at the assignment we had presented the previous day. We were to read over what we had written and see how it could be made better, the flow of words easier to read and grammatically correct. Often the only tweaking required would be the removal or addition of a word, a restructured sentence.

I was occupied with other things besides writing, for I was one of the older students who had returned to school at age 38. I did the assignment but didn’t understand the need for the ‘further review.’ I had written what I felt was an adequate piece between cooking dinner and folding laundry, and felt no compunction to change anything; that mindset would later defeat me, hindering my reasoning and direction I should have heeded. Sometimes you do need to take a second look at things, to look at things with fresh eyes.

Summer of 2009 has been extremely rainy, and one I don’t think I’ll soon forget. I’ve filed it in my mind as the “Rainbow Summer,” since the mixture of the sun and low laying clouds has created more than I can remember seeing in one season. The rain has birthed beautiful flowers and strange fruit in our garden, the likes of which we’ve not witnessed before. What was first thought as an errant zucchini, has turned to a pumpkin, before deciding it is really a watermelon. I realized it was a metaphor for my life as well and the process I have taken to get where I am.

The rain has also produced the most magnificent blooms from my rose bushes as well. Given as wedding presents on a hot summer morning, we couldn’t wait to plant them.

Disappointment loomed for three seasons as the bushes were barely non-descript, the sweet petals munched up by beetles. The resulting roses were skimpy and odorless; we secretly hoped this wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.

Happily, this summer I’ve awoken to vases chock full of roses of every size. Their luscious aroma fills my head even before I open my eyes, knowing a bouquet has been placed on my bedside table, a good morning kiss from the one those least expected to be so romantic.

In fact, the kitchen and dining room tables are equally adorned with vases large and small, bookends to the calamities of the day ahead.

So upon further review, I will be thankful for this rainy summer of 2009 during the winter of 2010. I will remember to try to be more than just adequate, and to constantly tweak what I can to make life around me more beautiful and worth the effort.

As I travel back to those vases full of love, I will remember what they were created from – rain, roses and rainbows.