I miss you Sam!!

I miss you Sam!!
I miss you Sam!!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Looking Back - Part 2

Earlier this week I posted a piece about my life simply because I had stumbled across something I had written several years ago and viewing it from where I am now, I found it rather interesting and decided to share it. The response to that post has greatly surprised me and what surprised me even more were the number of people who urged me to write more. Well, I’ll never write another book. To begin with I mostly wrote mysteries that I used as my escape when things got bad – well, look at it this way – you can kill off the “bad guys” in a book and never have to worry about going to jail! Be that as it may, I wrote eight of them, never made much of an effort at getting them published, past a few inquiries. I didn’t write to get published, but just because I loved to write, it was a fun way to have an adventure etc. etc. etc. But over the past ten years I’ve had good reasons to reflect on my life – then and now. And now I have a place to share those thoughts, reflections, memories, lessons learned with people that I’ve come to care for so very much. Again, I would like to thank you all for your warm and generous comments.

So, that being said I will post a “Looking Back” piece once or twice a week and I hope that all of you who have responded so warmly, so generously, will enjoy what I have to say/write and that perhaps you will find an answer or two for yourself or just something worth reflecting on. I'm not posting in any particular order, you can read one here and there or follow along week to week.

Reflections

How softly the days come and go now, so much easier to see the possibilities as light filters softly through the lace curtains I once felt were too prosaic, too frilly, too soft for me, that busy working woman, with responsibilities and always on the go -- or so it seemed at the time. Now lace suits me quite well and through them I can view my life as a mosaic, filled with light and shadows, like the patterns the late afternoon sun sketches on the walls. I wonder, not for the first time, why youth is wasted on the young? Worrying about a date for Saturday night, a new zit, trips to the mall. Bits and pieces scattered, lost like scattered beads from a broken necklace. Then one day there is the need, the urge to gather them, restring them. The result is not what I thought it would be so many years ago, but a new collage, a new, sparkling, different gem, or maybe I was just determined to recapture the glow -- the joy, the beauty that somehow had evaded me since I had retired. Well, whatever, it’s mine now.



The Journey Begins

Several years ago when I was living in Portland, OR I heard about a poetry writing class that was being held near where I lived. Poetry wasn't anything I had tried to write before and I wasn't sure I had any talent whatsoever for writing it, but I decided it sounded interesting and signed up to attend. It was a six week class, we had an excellent teacher and I really enjoyed it -- don't know that I'm particularly talented as a poet, but it was fun. I hoped perhaps there would be a follow-up course.

Several weeks after the course was over I received a notice that there would be a life writing class and my former teacher urged me to give it a try. I did and made a good friend there. It was she who urged me to start a blog. I wasn't too keen on the idea at first, but after I returned to Seattle, I was cleaning some stuff off my computer and ran across the lessons from both the poetry and the life writing classes. After reading them again a few days later, I decided they might be a good place to start with a blog. I realize now that I was looking for the person, the "me" that I thought I had lost somewhere along the way.

Re-reading both the poetry and the life writing lessons made me take another look at not only the hurtful things that I had tried to forget over the years -- those things that have a way of haunting you no matter how hard you try to put them away, but a look at the fun things as well. They brought some tears, some laughter, but above all, the realization of what a truly wonderful life I've had. Hurts? yes, of course, but successes as well and certainly not the least of those are my four children.

So, who knows where all this "stuff" comes from or why we hang on to it, try to bury it or sometimes even try to re-live it. The good and the bad all are part of who we are, so maybe at this stage of the game it's time to make peace with it, celebrate it, make the most of it, because that "stuff" is what has made us who we are, not only older, wiser but in a lot of cases, more fun, more free, more loving, more forgiving, more understanding. In other words all of it can or has made us the person we are today. So celebrate her/him and I lift my glass of wine to all of you this evening.

10 comments:

Peggy said...

Oh Sylvia, I loved your post! I can't wait for more. I agree that fogiving yuorself and accepting the good and the bad are what we are meant to do! Life is such a journey with ups and downs and so many choices for each person to make. We do make mistakes...it's how life works but forgiveness is the other part. Thank you.

Linda Reeder said...

Sylvia, I have been doing some catching up. What a story teller you are, and what stories you have to tell!

When I traveled in Arizona this March, I became familiar with the Man in a Maze symbol of the Tohono O'odham tribe. I bought a medalian with the symbol and I love wearing it. I call it my "life is amazing" totem.
I did not always feel that way, when I was feeling the pressures of raising children and teaching, but I do now. Life is truly amazing.

Lilly said...

Beautifully written Sylvia. I just finihsed your first post on this and am delighted you are going to be telling your stories. Please do because I for one thing its going to be incredibly interesting and will do much for you too. And also what a great way to have somethng to give your children too. The gift of your memories. Cannot wait for more and am excited!!!

bobbie said...

Yes, it has all made us what we are - and continues to make us what we will become. It's never over until it's over. How sure we can be, at various stages of our lives, that THIS is who we are and we will never change. That's so amusing. Change is what it's all about.

Joyce and Dorothy said...

Sylv, honey, whaddya waitin' fer? Joyce and I are sittin' on the porch; we've got the home-made hooch and a rack of ammunition...gid on over here, girl...

robin andrea said...

I just read both Part 1 and 2 this morning. I don't know how I missed that first post, but I did. I think storytelling is the best part of blogging. Because we no longer live in community, the way our human ancestors did for millions of years, we don't get to sit around the fires anymore and tell the stories. So, we do this. Tell the stories here, around the virtual campfire.

Darlene said...

Sylvia, you really touched a nerve with your comment about hurtful things that we try to forget.

I have been struggling with that aspect of my personality for a long time and wondering why I am unable to let go of some deep hurts. Intellectually I know I am only hurting myself and that I should forget and forgive. I don't want to remember the bad and fervently wish I could forget them as easily as I forget what I went into a room for.

Maybe in the next 80 years I will learn how to be a bigger person and really forgive and not just give lip service to it.

Sujatha Bagal said...

Beautiful thoughts, Sylvia. And for me, very valuable. Somewhere in the back of our minds we know these truths, but they get lost in the minutae of everyday life. Thank you for deciding to write these posts. They are gentle reminders.

Susan at Stony River said...

Fantastic post Sylvia, I loved reading. Your take on writing mysteries is wonderful--I'm going to keep that in mind.

magiceye said...

"why youth is wasted on the young?"

lol! that was lovely!
and yes indeed cheers to that toast you raised to celebrate us!!

What Can I Say?

What Can I Say?
I'm interested in almost everything. Use to like to travel, but it's too expensive now. I take Tai Chi classes, swim, volunteer in a Jump-start program for pre-schoolers. I'm an avid reader and like nearly everyone these days I follow politics avidly. I'm a former teacher and Special Projects Coordinator for a Telecommunications company, Assistant to the President of a Japanese silicon wafer manufacturing company. Am now enjoying retirement -- most of the time. I have two daughters, one son-in-law and two sons scattered all over the country. No grandchildren.

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