I’ve just started reading my second Ann-Marie MacDonald book in as many days, The Way The Crow Flies, and I am completely enamoured of her writing style. This second book is about an Air Force family in the early 60s and even though it is the CANADIAN Air Force and not the American one which provided my childhood label of “military brat,” it is already evident after only a few chapters that she has captured the essence of it completely.
If you move around all your life, you can’t find where you come from on a map. All those places where you lived are just that: places. You don’t come from any of them; you come from a series of events. And those are mapped in memory. Contingent, precarious events, without the counterpane of places to muffle the knowledge of how unlikely they are. Almost not born at every turn. Without a place, events slow-tumbling through time become your roots […] Tell the story, gather the events, repeat them. Pattern is a matter of upkeep. Otherwise the weave relaxes back to threads picked up by birds to make their nests. Repeat, or the story will fall and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men….Repeat, and cradle the places carefully, or events will scatter like marbles on a wooden floor.
I could have written that. I wish I had written that, because it so perfectly describes that feeling of rootlessness, of multi-homeness that describes my upbringing. I have to sometimes think quite carefully about my past to put things into proper order. Where was I when that happened? What grade was I in? Ah yes, then it must have been this year, not that one; this place, not that one.
Writing that list of lost things last night was like that. A kaleidoscopic moment-in-time, which twisted and reformed with each memory-shake. Remembering my life is like that. Writing in this journal is like that. Reading blogs is like that, too. A shake, a twist, then putting my eye to the viewhole, and peering in to see what patterns and beautiful creations can be seen.
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2 Things That I Can Do Well if I Put My Mind To It
1) I can make a bed with hospital corners, neat and tidy and crisp, but I don’t anymore because I abandoned using top sheets years and years ago. I don’t remember who taught me how; most likely my mom who also taught me how to iron. I don’t do that either, except once in awhile for our cloth napkins or tablecloths used for special dinner parties. I don’t know why I dislike ironing, but I do. I put it off sometimes until we actually need the napkins again, which means, basically, double-ironing.
2) I can giftwrap like a professional, neat square corners, lined up and matched. It was probably my mom who taught me that, as well. After purchasing one of Anders’ Christmas presents this year at a sports store, watching the young cashier’s aide bungle and botch and mangle the wrapping job was actually painful. I had to look away and then turn my body to avoid snatching the tape out of her hands and doing it myself.
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Really Great Writing Out There Right Now: Noticing Right Now
Big Girl, Best-Year-of-Your-Life, Bubbling Birthday Wishes to helloheather!