i can't even try to talk about it.  I guess it was/is as if there were TWO day's going on at once and they kept bumping in to each other so that neither of them could be Today?  

and then…a kind of Of Course,  my long long Michigan friend Luna,  sent me these

 

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she and her family had gone to a Music Festival up the hill from this house here so she took a couple pics to send…this is My House.  This is MY HOUSE.  This is my house.  Where Jenny was born into.  My Spring Street house in Ann Arbor Michigan.  There,  to the right is the neighbor's house,  the Lum's.   I don't know if any of the now very adult children live there?  But it's the house that Jenny would escape to.  Wearing only her yellow boots from the Netherlands.  Nothing else.  And Mrs. Lum would call me and tell me in Chinese that she was there and i would walk over and retrieve this naked child with her little plastic bag of noodles and almond cookies.   they used to call her Fioke.  that's a guess of how it might be spelled in Chinese.  I would ask them now and then,  the then young 4 children of Mrs. Lum,  i would asked them  what that meant and they would look off and kind of away and not answer me but then  George, the youngest son said

brat.

so my naked brat in yellow boots from the Netherlands.  Fioke.  They loved her.

if you try really hard,  you might see the front of a red car toward the back left of the pic and it's facing where there looks to be an addition to the shape of the front of the house and that's my Kitchen and it looks to be an addition because it was,  it's over 100 years old, this house, an Old Woman House and there was a kitchen added on before we lived there.  There was a dry sink.

That's my kitchen.  When i type those words, i get all teary.  

but i see these pics here that Luna took just a couple days ago and i see how Old Woman House is all very nicely Yellow and how they took off the railing on the left,  probably for convenience of some sort and how they have purple tulips growing out front and some kind of sedum on the Lum's hill.

 

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behind the house is a long long rectangle lot that is flat near the house but then goes down into a terraced garden space and then beyond to the wild place where the Lilac Forest was and where the kids had their "tree fort" world.  First, what comes to mind was how Snake Louise lived there….the Garden Snake,  the Snake Louise from a Wind at the Door,  Madeleine L'engle,  and all the Toads,  all the Toads  that my son Jonathan would feed mulberries to.

I used to LIKE,  actually, LIKE telling the story of how i left this house,  the Life lived in this house.  I would tell it hard and fast.  It was FULL of Ego,  mine,  and i was full of it.  I told it as such an adventure.  Which…it was.  but i look back now….

Now…it's hard.  Hard to look back.  Hard to see it,  to see my self then,  to feel that self then still alive in the me that is now,  almost 30 years later.   oh,  eeeee…….

 

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12 responses to “an unidentifiable day”

  1. Mo Crow Avatar

    as my wise old friend and mentor in glass engraving Anne Dybka RIP said half a lifetime ago “we get to live many lives in this one lifetime”

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar

    we do.
    and if we are lucky, we get to look at them., these lives, and know something about
    Living. Living being….well, living. We get to know something about Living. Pretty simple, huh. pretty simple, isn’t it.

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  3. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Memories can be a double-edge sword, as they often are for me and everyone else I think. It’s a very fine house back there…and I know what you mean about telling a story fast and hard. That’s how I tell most of my most traumatic stories to strangers. It’s how I keep them from overwhelming me and dragging me back///the feelings are viewed from a distance…the memory of them. Your life has been astounding though, and worth remembering.
    Now that your rush to be ready is stalled, I’m guessing you feel a little at sea…a little too ‘in-between’ perhaps. I’m feeling the lack of those that are gone, and the non=presence of those still on the planet…those I think of when I contemplate Mother.

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  4. grace Avatar

    Mother
    contemplating Mother.
    your words here. so True.
    the double edged sword. the telling fast and hard.
    stalled.
    perfect word. stalled…
    no one here is gone, there is no nonpresence but the
    comtemplation of Mother
    is thick. like Honey.

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  5. jude Avatar

    i look back on many selves. they are like houses in a way.

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  6. Carolyn Petersen Avatar
    Carolyn Petersen

    You made my mask in the garden of that house.

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  7. Deb Avatar

    You made me stop and think that, even though I don’t consider myself “travelled” I’ve lived in a lot of places. Most of them gone, the way it happens in the northeast so often. poof. But I have pictures too. I find myself holding the picture and turning it as if I could find another, more revealing perspective.

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  8. grace Avatar

    they are. like houses. Places. where stuff takes place

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  9. grace Avatar

    maybe like a stage

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  10. grace Avatar

    o…Carolyn…that you place this memory here…
    this is so Good.
    if we could “travel back”, repeat that moment with what we
    know now…??????????????????
    i am so much more of the earth, so much more grounded and
    oh…if we could go back.
    Thank you so much for this…these words here….
    Love,

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  11. grace Avatar

    my guess is that you can. Turning, you can see the Turning of
    the Time and it reveals so much

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  12. Nina Avatar
    Nina

    Funny you should mention Louise the Snake! I just finished rereading some of Madeleine L’Engle’s books last week.. . Wrinkle in Time, Wind in the Door, Many Waters, Swiftly Tilting Planet. Lots of good thinking in those books.
    I think the yellow house is lovely and you have wonderful memories of living there. I lived in suburbs for much of my life and can’t even imagine going back to living that tightly. I guess I have a difficult time imagining you there, when I look at a the photos of where you are now! Wind, sky and goats. It is nice to have had the opportunity to have lived many lives in this one trip here on Earth!

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