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Ten years into widowhood, after one year of incredible happiness and nearly 14 years of single blessedness. Retired, and mostly enjoying it. Still knitting. [Zen]tangling.again after a brief hiatus.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Great American What?

Knock me over with a feather. While I was shredding last night, I found a notebook that I thought was just more of the same: writing exercises from 1997 and 1998. Instead, I have a good quarter-inch of first draft, I think meant to be a fictionalized relation of some of the experiences that have made me who I am. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, as well as the guilty.

I have read about 15 pages of it, and for the most part it reads just as I experienced it. While I find that memory is becoming a subtly fluid thing, there are excerpts where I find myself thinking, “Yes, that is just what happened,” or “Oh dear, and I don’t think I made that part up.”

And there is one wickedly funny scene which takes place in a laundromat, as the intrepid heroine ponders how two little girls can contribute one panty apiece to the laundry pile, when no laundry has been done for two weeks. As she says, it does not bear contemplating, and I remember that that bit was drawn from life, when my own kids were much much much much younger.

There is good stuff in there. Bits of one friend and another, memories, and the transmuting of the pain I felt at my second divorce into the longing of a widow for the husband she lost. Because one of the few things the women in my family can agree upon is how it feels as if their father has died, even as the shell of the man lingers on.

I did skip Knit Night last night; got a load of whites washed and dried and home. And only now remembered that I forgot to hang up the damp bras. Thankfully it is not August, so they will only be cold and damp this morning, not cold and damp and beginning to turn colors and smell funny. And I got a few rows done in pattern on the first missionary hat, throughout the day.

Shred 2010 continues. The stack of notebooks is dwindling down. The folders are in the recycling bag and will go out to the bin when I leave for work. And now if you will all excuse me, I am going to sit on the couch and pre-fold tomorrow morning's batch of shredding. Ten sheets. Empty. Ten sheets. Empty. [I told you the receptacle was much smaller than on my old shredder.]

Take that, you forces of chaos!

1 comment:

Jenni said...

There are some random things that I remember from my childhood that cannot properly be described to other such as the state of our laundry room in the house in Irving and how that transitioned into the prefect place to escape and read a book.