I might not be able to tell you what I had for dinner a few days ago, and I might not remember your name, but I sure as heck can dig up the most obscure details about your family history and my own. My memory has always been funny that way. I’ve never been good with tedious details such as dates and time, which is why I prefer fictional memoir to auto-biography. As a historian, I won’t be able to tell you the names of all the presidents and war heroes or the dates of births, deaths and wars. But I can tell you more than you want to know about the social construct of a given period of time and its companion of human behavior.
I think it’s about the lens one carries through life. My mother was obsessed with details. It was the bane of her life because she couldn’t let go of the small stuff. She held onto every insult, snub and snide remark anyone had ever made to her. It was the manna upon which she supped. A rumination of little stories she had constructed about people based upon one tiny detail. Something they said or did that offended her a gazillion years ago was enough to fence them in a life sentence of being “such and such” or a certain “so and so”.
I, on the other hand, was always more of a big-picture gal. The details were always a bit fuzzy, since I am made up of mostly water and air and just enough earth to ground me (barely). But not enough to build a wall that keeps me from seeing who you really are. Insight was my game from the get-go. A natural empath, I could walk into a room and immediately sense things about people. Who was in trouble, who was in pain, who could be trusted with truth.
I believe that I have always read life with the voice of a writer. When the world is a watery place, you swim in it with your eyes wide open. It’s amazing what you can see through that watery lens. For example, I have some incredibly vivid memories from my early childhood which are steeped in that watery detail. Deeply descriptive, yet fuzzy on the edge of time. I have verified facts such as a particular sweater-set I wore, or the time which is marked by before and after, such as before my Grampa Johnston died, or after cousin Tina came to live with us.
One such memory is the first time I was conscious of the stars. I was about three years old, and it may have been November, because it was nippy, and I recall the harsh chill of the plastic seats of the car and the peculiar mix of gasoline and stale cigarette smoke nipping at my nose when my father placed me in the back seat. My grandfather died around Thanksgiving when I was three years old, so I know I wasn’t any older than that.
We had been visiting my grandparents in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. My father was carrying me and walking down the cement walk. As we turned to wave goodbye to my grandpa, I was brushed by the night air which felt cold and harsh, and I snuggled down inside the little mint-green angora sweater with the soft furry hat that matched. I can still recall the tickling scent of that angora sweater with the little pearl buttons. I wriggled and stretched out in my father’s arms much the way I’ve seen puppies do, and his grasp on me was strong and safe.
When I looked up at the sky, it was the blackest of velvet blacks and for the first time ever, I noticed bright lights piercing through the dark. I was suddenly frightened by those twinkling lights which reminded me of the big factories we would drive past on our way home – those factories of Lowell and Lawrence that marched through the night to a drumbeat of machines – the drivers of bad dreams.
I was so frightened by the factories and the dark water of the Merrimac River, I would cover my head when we drove through the city. I would crawl down to the floor behind my mother’s seat so that the wrecking balls (there were so many back then, as Route 495 was being built), wouldn’t see me. I thought the great clawed arms of demolition machines would pluck me out of the car and place me up in the sky.
In the safety of my father’s arms I became suddenly confused, thinking we would have to fly up in the sky like angels to get home, past those twinkling lights from the never-ending windows of the Lowell mills. I thought we would be lost forever in the dark sky with those piercing factory lights, and my older brother Richie would cry because he would miss us.
I cried out, “No Daddy!” pointing at the sky.
No one paid any attention. The grown-ups were too busy tying up the threads of loose conversations. They didn’t know the world had been turned upside down. I began to sob, knowing we were doomed to float endlessly in that black sky searching for our way home over bridges and canals and those factory lights with their marching band drone would swallow us up.
“She’s tired”, I heard my grandpa say.
It was the last time I remember seeing my grandfather before he died. I can still see him standing in the doorway on the porch with a halo of light behind him. He would be the one swallowed up by the sky where the factories still hold the patents of his inventor hands. e
“It was the manna upon which she supped.”
Wonderful line!