It was lovely to visit Grace and Chekhov up at Sunset for Thanksgiving; I drove up Wednesday evening, waiting until about 7:30 to avoid the hellish traffic in Tacoma, and stayed until late Friday (a day earlier than planned due to a slight emergency in Seattle which required my attention). In the meantime, I slept on the mattress Matt & I shared in Oklahoma, on my favorite bedframe which had been in storage since sometime in 2003. I prepared a holiday feast, smaller than the ones I used to make but still generous, and I poked through some of the things I haven’t seen since leaving for Seattle almost three years ago. There was a strange, bittersweet quality to the experience; though my life in Seattle is in some ways better than my life in Oklahoma had been, there were many things I treasured about that old life, now gone forever. I let my fingers play over objects, once familiar to me, which now seemed like the relics of a fallen empire from centuries past; I felt emotions, at once beautiful and sad, well up in me and come spilling out of my eyes in droplets of brine from the primordial sea we each carry in our bodies. I cannot change the events of the past decade; I don’t think it would be wise to try even if I could. And yet…surely it’s understandable that a woman weep quietly over memories of beloved things she has lost, even if losing them was necessary to gain others she loves at least as well.
Diary #387
November 28, 2017 by Maggie McNeill
5 Responses
Leave a Reply
Visit my bookstore
This Month
Old Posts
Call me
Become a Blog Patron
If you want to donate but don't want a recurring charge, you can send any amount you like via PayPal to my email address (see below). Be sure to include a note so I can thank you!Contact Maggie
Maggie on Twitter
My TweetsBoring but necessary legal stuff
Maggie… evocative memories, how do we treasure those that change us forever. I’m at a place on the beach at present, visiting where I felt I owned a small part of the beach coastline.
I had a little caravan of which I owned a slice of this beachfrontage. If I had known what would happen 10 years later… I would have run and escaped the pain if I had known the outcomes.
My thoughts are in a happier place now and I have a new man at my side. But I still struggle to see whether he is the… right one. Yes, I sense all you talk on.
How lucky we are that we can reminiscence … and be blessed, as it’s moulded me into the person I’ve become. Strong, resilient but still … myself.
When faced with the same situation, things that reminded me poignantly of the past – for better or worse – I would (and still do) take some particularly symbolic object of the set and seal it in some form of container that might just last a long time.
And then I find a beautiful spot, a mundane but functional location, a special area, or a place I have never been before….and bury it. Partially it is a symbol of letting go of the memory, letting it be free as it also frees me…but also it is so that maybe…someday…a year from now or a thousand years from now…some archaeologist, or even just a small child or person randomly digging, will find it and wonder what was the story, where did it come from, who buried…and why?
You become an anonymous time traveler at that point. Simultaneously here….and there, far in the future. Well, if you have a good imagination you do. 🙂
The other nice thing about this method is that if you ever think of the item again you are inevitably reminded that it is buried and that someone in the future might find it – and presto, the mind can wander to *other* completely unrelated archaeological topics and things – Pompeii! – Carved cedar canoes found under a mud flat! – Bog sacrifices – bronze swords thrown into the lake! – childs toys – old medicine bottles discarded along the Oregon Trail – and the mind can naturally wander to happier topics. (or sadder, or neutral, depending on the present need)
“the primordial sea we each carry in our bodies”: what a wonderful, haunting and elegiac turn of phrase…
I tend to be somewhat of a packrat. Not because the objects are useful, but because of the memories attached to them. Opening up an old box and picking something up is akin to travelling in time. It puts me back in a place with much stronger memories, including smells, touch, taste, etc.
My sister tells me I should just take a picture of the object if it is only for the memory, but it is not the same as holding it. There is some greater tactile connection there that is almost spiritual.
Maggie wrote:
English language does not have a word for this experience. I think the Japanese aesthetic term for it is Yūgen.