Memories of Home; Things to Do Undone

If you love me you will probably read this. If you don't, you might not bother. I have the idea that though it hasn't been particularly or specially formed, the writing that I did yesterday might give someone an idea about how to access their own memories, their memories of home. I took me all day to write this, in the moments here and there:

I told Michael that I had figured out I was going to have to do some autobiographical writing, and start working with all my hang-ups and insecurities in order to get them out of the way, so that publicly I could begin to write about less personally situated things. Though I have begun thinking more autobiographically, and have started thinking about processing feelings poetically instead of narratively, I have not set about the project as I discussed it with him. Neither have I set about the voice training project that he had devised for me. Yesterday I played an Ella Fitzgerald CD while I folded laundry, but I was unable to listen closely enough to find the three kinds of songs he had described. I also never found a time during the day yesterday to set to work on it, though it would have taken only fifteen minutes according to our current parameters.

I'm sitting here right now, on the sofa in my living room. Isaac is beginning to stir. I've tried to awaken Michael, but he's still in the bed. I can't tell whether or not Parker is still sleeping, but I imagine that he won't be for long. The day is about to begin. There is a pause, and a holding of breath. What will this one be like? Will it be a good day? Will I do well? What sort of work is required of me today, and will I do it or not? Yes, I had a thought that I was holding out for, and since the children came in asking their questions, I don't remember what that thought was.

Will we take a walk together this morning? Will I sketch a meal plan? Will I go to the grocery store? Will laundry be done? What all needs to happen today?

I've been thinking about my grandmother lately. I look up at the tiles in my ceiling and I think of her, that room in the back of her house where the family always sat, barely remembering the day we showed up at her home and the room was new. Every time I make an afternoon cup of coffee I think of her, sitting at the table in her kitchen, with coffee cup and saucer before her, stirring it quickly in small bursts before setting her coffee spoon down to make a point. I remember her avid brown eyes, the way she looked at me when she was enthusiastic about something. I remember what she said the day that she took my new large journal from me and read it without asking permission. She told me my writing reminded her of her. I can pull out that journal in a moment and find out what the date was and what it was she read in my journal that day.

In thinking of her, I remember a woman I used to work with, a woman who reminded me of her. It makes me rather sad that I wasn't able to keep up with her, even though the two of us had many an argument. Her name was Mary too, and the other girls were impressed by the way I held my ground when we each were certain we were right. I visited her house one time, all the way out in Fayette, and it had a ceiling like ours, like my grandmother's.

I've been thinking about my father's mother today, but on Sunday my mother told me that she misses her mother every day. I felt like I smelled her house last night, my mother's mother's, at the house of a friend who has a septic system. There was something about the smell of the water in the bathroom. What a funny thing to associate with my grandmother's house. When I think of her I think of banjos and listening to the police scanner late at night, and thinking how curious it was, how I would watch the lights on the scanner, as though the act of listening weren't enough, as though I were watching tv.