The Writer Within

 

 When the town’s beloved, elderly, and feisty Lucy Powell died suddenly at age 95, all wondered how to peer into her belongings.  

Miss Powell had no relatives yet alive and no family to inherit a lifetime of her history.  Her family was her community and friends.

Slowly, close friends began to assimilate bits of China, old books, quilts, and other items into their own homes.  That was when the diary was discovered. Who should take it?  Who should even open it?

A diary can paint a picture of unrequited love with hearts broken, hearts renewed, and love lost then found. Finding a worn diary, fringed from fingers turning pages over decades, awed all who gathered around.

Finally, Old Ms Alda Franklin stepped forward.  I will take it.  She and I shared so many memories… All agreed.

 

When Alda finally settled down into her rocker with a cup of tea, she opened the cover and began reading each page. She chuckled, cried, gasped, and sighed until she read the last page:

 

My life had meaning and gave me reason to exist.  Touching others, being kind and generous, loving those who are unloved: that is the essence of life.

   

To all who turn these pages: Go!  Make your life count! 

 Journals paint lives in ways that simple words cannot. When we moved, I unpacked 10 family complete diaries and a few not so complete. The bold underlined words are from Wednesday Words, 2015.  Delores started this challenge for bloggers to try other genres. Please go to these marvelous sites:  

 

                             River  and  Elephant's child

 

 

 

Words from Lucy's Past

                                 Old Journals

 

 

 When the town’s beloved, elderly, and feisty Lucy Powell died suddenly at age 95, all wondered how to peer into her belongings.  

Miss Powell had no relatives yet alive and no family to inherit a lifetime of her history.  Her family was her community and friends.

Slowly, close friends began to assimilate bits of China, old books, quilts, and other items into their own homes.  That was when the diary was discovered. Who should take it?  Who should even open it?

A diary can paint a picture of unrequited love with hearts broken, hearts renewed, and love lost then found. Finding a worn diary, fringed from fingers turning pages over decades, awed all who gathered around.

Finally, Old Ms Alda Franklin stepped forward.  I will take it.  She and I shared so many memories… All agreed.

 

When Alda finally settled down into her rocker with a cup of tea, she opened the cover and began reading each page. She chuckled, cried, gasped, and sighed until she read the last page:

 

My life had meaning and gave me reason to exist.  Touching others, being kind and generous, loving those who are unloved: that is the essence of life.

   

To all who turn these pages: Go!  Make your life count! 

 Journals paint lives in ways that simple words cannot. When we moved, I unpacked 10 complete diaries and a few not so complete. The bold underlined words are from Wednesday Words, 2015.  Delores started this challenge for bloggers to try other genres.

 

 

Dear Diary....

Source: Dear Diary....

It is rare thing to grab a random day’s memories from say, July 20, 1968.  Just a few words of a memory, but somehow those words piece together who I was on that day.

Forgotten diaries reveal so much, maybe too much sometimes.

July 20, 1968:  Grandma Cardiff is moving out of her apartment.  This makes me so sad.  She has a lot of packing to do.  I started a “hope chest” today with some of her linens and glasses.

Translation:  My grandma had been widowed in 1965, which sent her into a traveler’s life.  This new apartment was close to my high school, and I could walk there, spend the nights.  It was my escape place, removed from the farm and its demands.  Now she was moving off again.  She gave me some of her treasured dishes and embroidered pillow cases.    She made me feel happy and loved, and now she was off again.

July 20, 1968: Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrain landed on the moon safely.  Neil Armstrong took the first step on the moon.

Translation:  I had graduated high school six weeks before.  I was heading to college, after herculean work to obtain a scholarship.  The news had been following the projected moon-landing.  In the middle of the night for our area, I watched it while my family slept.  The volume was on low, but the excitement was not.  That day was one of future possibilities—for me.

What will I read next?

Source

Drama of Life

In looking for something, I found treasures…I think I have used that phrase before...anyway...

Well, not treasures exactly.  Journals from years ago, I found my journals. 

At times throughout life, I have kept one or more journals at any given time.  They would be filled with everything—a record of good and bad events, thoughts, and concerns.

In my childhood, there was nothing print-worthy happening in my opinion, so my journals-diaries were little snippets of drama.  A verruca wart on my foot was exaggerated to be a crippling illness.  That would then morph into life threatening.  To make the diary appear even more dramatic, I dribbled some cologne water over entries to create tear smears.  Oh, I was big on drama as a child, my father always maintained.

Drama must be part of life in one shape or another.  Falling in love, getting married, childbirth—those are darned dramatic.  I have photos to prove it!

But, the little dramas, the ones that are interspersed on a daily basis?  Now, those are the stuff of life. 

Losing one’s car keys?  Not drama.  Standing in line at Starbuck’s behind an elderly couple holding hands?  That’s drama.  Their whole life was played out before me in simple gestures, soft looks, few words, and even their order. 

She had “…the decaf coffee with vanilla syrup…not too much, now…and room for creamer…”  He had the “…full-strength stuff, and …NO, I will not have decaf instead….”  See?  There lays a whole one act play, filled to the brim with drama, leaving a little room for cream:  “…leave room for cream…you have real cream, dontcha? Not that fake stuff they call creamer…”

See what I mean?  Real drama.  I wanted to follow them to a table, but my order was ‘to go’.  Who knows what I missed? 

Those journals will have months!  months, I tell you, of future postings.  I can feel the drama vibrating through the cardboard covers.