Little Scribbles A Woman’s Notes Running
Press Philadelphia, London
While in the
process of setting up a brand, new office space in my Vineyard condo,
various surprises surfaced
- missing bills materialized, a favorite pen –one I believed lost in my
numerous shufflings this past year suddenly manifested. The best among the treasures was a 2” by 3”
notebook that my daughter, Kay, gave me in 1999. When I unwrapped it on Christmas morning, she
instructed me to keep it in my purse so that I could write down ideas for my
book. Kay, never a shrinking violet,
included a picture of herself on the cover as a source of inspiration. She assured me that, if I were to have a
“stuck” moment, I could dig into my purse and jot down a few words generated by
her smile alone! It was a thoughtful gift. It fit readily in all of my purses. Happily for me, years later, Kay’s present
keeps on giving; it serves as an inadvertent, but excellent, time machine.
At the time I
received the Little Scribbles notebook, my family lived in a newly renovated
house in Sunderland, MA. The children
were all at the Bement School in neighboring Deerfield, MA – Hannah was nine,
Kay was eight, and Charles was five. We had celebrated the completion of a
house that we had designed and built with close friends on Martha’s Vineyard .
Life had a shimmery quality of happiness, fullness and joy. I was writing for the Hampshire Gazette
regularly. It was against this backdrop that I regularly jotted down thoughts,
partial sentences and nearly indecipherable phrases. I managed to string these
thoughts together like imperfect seed pearls. I devoted myself to polishing
them, and then selling my observations to various magazines that featured
essays about family life and spirituality.
Sometimes, I would pull out my little notebook, dig up a pen from the
bottom of my pocketbook, and had them over to my restless children in
restaurants and in church. It is only
now that I discovered occasionally, my children made a few entries of their
own.
Dated 12.24.99 Dawn
wrote a phrase: “a benefactor assigned duly and
without duress”
Ensuing pages : phone numbers and Scrabble scores
Dawn wrote: In Vino
Veritas
Dawn wrote: Snow and sorrow defined my life.
April 30, 2000
Dawn wrote: Innocence
lost, knowledge gained
Ours was no Eden, but just the
same…
Dawn wrote: God gave us the ribbon, but didn’t tie the bow.
Dawn wrote: Music by Anne Cochran
Dawn wrote: Snackwell’s Coconut Cremes
Dawn wrote: 3 Chimneys Inn in Durham, N.H. Dale?
Charles drew a dog bone.
Hannah wrote: Hi Mom, Bye Mom, Hannah ps Hi Mom
pps. An Actual Artpiece (Triple A)
Charles drew a compass rose.
Dawn wrote: “ So many
stories begin with a crossing. Crossing a city,
a
bridge, or an ocean. For me, it began as simply as crossing a room.”
12.31.00
Charles wondered the difference between the Civil War and
the Silver War.
Dawn notes: Satin Basecoat with semigloss topcoat with
appleseed sponge.
Book: Soul’s Code by James Hillman
Healing
Grief: Reclaiming Life After Any Loss
James Van Praagh
Sigiornella Wine ‘87
Dawn wrote: Isolated, the most common views become
spectacular – this one tree,
separated from its brethren, shows its outstretched branches and
its shining glory.
Carly Simon: Death is just the limit of our sight line adapted from,
“Life is eternal, and love
is immortal, and death only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit
of our sight.” Rossiter Worthington
Raymond
Dates, dollar amounts, To Do lists, scribbles and doodles. A crypt of sorts; warehousing the Dawn I was
then, a paler reflection of whom I am bowMy little scribbles added up to
something, someone. I have used my
writing to lend transparency to who I am.
The opposite might be said of my mother. She was a woman of notes. Layered below the instructional notes she left
on most all appliances and on doors, drawers and tools
were notes she wrote for her eyes only.
Among my mother’s effects when I was emptying her office, I
found several stenographer’s pads filled with her sketches and poems and
unfinished essays.
She has been gone nearly four years, but there are times that
her loss cuts as keenly as the day she died.
On those occasions, I glance at
the pads she left behind. I have taken a shiny ribbon (some may suggest
it was provided by God, and he left me to tie the bow) to bind her notes. I am waiting for the time that I am brave
enough, open enough, loving enough, forgiving enough to see an entirely new
dimension of my mother; one she kept scrupulously hidden from my father, my
sister and me. As I wend my way through
uncharted territory of my own life, my curiosity about her path has grown. I wouldn’t be surprised if, one day in the
very near future, I pull the ribbon, allowing it to flutter to the floor. I can
imagine flipping the first page of the first steno pad and finding myself
introduced to a woman I never really knew at all.
