Unpacking 192 boxes, again, inevitably lends to reflection as old photos arrive, tease the mind, make me smile and wanna skip down memory lane.
I can practically see the nostalgia kick in but the heart survives, a soft pain at first, then quickly lessens for what better way to move on in life then to honor ones past. Isn't this how the Goths or Visigoths prayed, by honoring their ancestors? Yes, I like that, that's my kinda faith.
Of course one can pretend to be what they wish to become, why not, there's nothing quite as hopeful as the day following the one being lived; self-help and therapy provide so much promise, to so many.
And yet what about the past, we can't possibly deny how manners and the ability to focus created balance even as modern life, full of informality and distractions, expedites the chaotic nature of our collective lives.
Alas, reviewing the past can be an insightful exercise, the kind that carries emotional weight, enough to lighten the load in future.
Especially when you ponder your parents lives before you were born, which I did while my mother was alive and after she passed away.
The first few pics are of my mother and her father, Muv and my maternal grandfather Walter, in San Francisco.
Old pictures provide a reprieve for the soul don't they? A visual mode to honor our ancestors so to speak. I've a picture of Muv below on a double date wearing duplicate dresses with a man she obviously adored before she met the man she would marry for 50 years. Does he not look like Victor Manure, I think he does and I do know that picture, not the people, but the reality in that old photograph will take on greater significance much later in my life, after all siblings are born, me being the last of five children.
I've pics of Muv w/her sisters on Opening Day for the Golden Gate Bridge 1937, there I am sitting on her lap in our car when we lived in California, where our family is from, when America felt free, long, long ago.
Another pic after a cousin's wedding with the bridge as backdrop, my mother is and always will seem like 'old San Francisco'.
The last pic in Positano after my brother, her beloved son died of cancer in 2000, I resigned and insisted we spend a month in Europe. We were just happy to be together, alive, we felt terribly sad yet terrifically grateful to be in italy.
The memories are enough to feast on forever. One item still makes me pause, then laugh out loud now, just as it did then, while staying in Positano.
My mother was a very disciplined woman, relaxed, highly stylish and artistic, funny but fastidious when preparing either for day or bed; quiet attention paid to detail and upkeep, always.
I treasured this time, watching her routine, in my own impatient way of course. Just as I had when I was a child.
David Sedaris has just released his first 'quirky' book full of slightly disturbing short stories about his 'quirky' family. I'm laying there on my stomach, legs dangling in the air, reading one of the short stories out loud, the one where he talks about his brother's odd and constant need to put his tongue in the light socket in the school classroom. It was so alarming to both teacher and class the teacher made a visit to the mother.
I'm laughing out loud as I read, then finish and roll over and wait for her join in. I look across the double beds nestled right alongside at Hotel Villa Franca overlooking the Med...the mis en scene is serene, we'd always been so comfortable with one another.
Rather than laugh, she's thinking of her 5 children, so different, each loved, I can see it, and feel it as she floats by onto the terrace, gently applying cream to her neck, when passing my bed she looks down with a soft, sympathetic smile on her face, in her eyes, her soothing voice, "darling, you all had your own quirks..." I paused, then laughed out loud again.
Later, when I moved to Europe I'd call her several times a week, and I knew when she was sick and I knew when I needed to go home and take care of her, and I knew then, before she died, what I would most about Muv was the sound of her soothing voice.
We both found it to be a magical month, even when we argued we had fun. We spent a month, a few days in London and Paris, Claridges and Le Crillon, respectively.
I'd just resigned, we had time. I remember her saying, "What's this thing about jet lag?" Muv was incapable of complaint.
For two weeks I'd attend a 4 hour cooking class, on the hill overlooking the Amalfi coast then meet up with Muv in mid afternoon. She'd spend the morning walking down at the beach, enjoy lunch along the water where Italian waiters took wonderful care, not a difficult task as she had lovely manners, a positive way of looking at life...will I look like her, will I ever exhibit those manners, will I ever be that calm and live to be 76 as she did, who knows.
After she died her cousin in San Fran said to me over the phone, "you will assimilate her dear Bailey," I suppose in my own way, in a fashion, without even thinking about it, I finally have...
