December 16, 2003

  • How quickly one's whole life can literally go up in smoke! The fire engines are still here, cleaning up the mess and I have just been allowed back into my apartment. Everything is safe and I am hysterical.


    The apartment behind me was on fire and in a matter of minutes, everything that I owned, my whole life, could have been gone. I know that my "stuff" can be replaced. But I look at all my pictures, all my memories, I look at the odds and ends that remind me of my mama, dead now these 12 years, of beloved grandparents gone for even longer, my siblings, my friends, my life and I panic at the thought of losing the irreplaceable.


    I am the custodian of the memories of my family, which means that I am a pack rat. I come by it honestly as my mama was a closet packrat before me ( as I suspect, was my grandmother before her). This I did not discover until two weeks after she had died, as my sister and I went to go through her things at my dad's request. We sorted through her life, the small things adnd the large that all that was left of her life...the mementos of a life rich in love.


    She used to shake her head asI kept every card and every ticket stub, every note sent to me by a loved one or dear friend. Books, magazines, odds and ends she said just added to the clutter. I laughed through my tears as I waded through the odds and ends, the little scraps of paper,notes from loved ones and dear friends and almost every card each of us had given her through the years. So yes, I come by it quite honestly.


    I look around my apartment and see photos that chronical not only my life, but the life of my family several generations back. As custodian of the memories of my family, I  was gifted the hundreds of pictures my family have taken on my mother's side since the late 1800's. I have pictures of my great grandparents, my grandparents as children.


    *Smiles throught my tears*


    My grandma at the age of 6 on her pony, her hair in ringlets, sitting in front of a merchantile store, in a town, not unlike one would see in Bonanza...wide dirt street, sidewalks made of wood, horses tied to hitching posts...women in long gowns, men in long johns with suspenders holding up their trousers. A photograph of her mother, standing in front of a wide circular staircase, in black gown with a bustle and hair swept up in a modified gibson girl. Her father with his hair parted down the middle and slicked down, both looking very serious as they neversmiled in photos back then.


    My Grandpa ina little sailor suit looking oh so cute, sitting next to his stern looking father,who really wasn't, but again, absolutely no smiling.


    A picture of my Grandpa's grandfather, which always makes me smile becuase of a story my grandpa would tell me. This dear man, grandpa's grandpa, when television was a new and magical thing (not so very long ago really), something people only watched on sundays, my great great grandpa, would take his bath and put on his sunday best to watch television, because he believed that the people in the tv could see him too. He wanted to look his best and he did until the day he died.


    I come by my love of photography and the need to chronicle my life in photgraphs as honestly as I do my need to hoard things.From my great great grandparents to myself...I have a pictorial history of my family and my life. My family was ridiculous when I was born...oh my stars the pictures!! So many pictures were taken during my growing up years, my mama took all our pictures, and put together a  photgraph album of our life, for each of my siblings and myself. Pictures in order from the moment we were born, until the most recent pictures she had of us. Report cards, awards, newspaper articles, and of course school pictures all graced these pictorial biographies.


    To me she gifted the album of our ancestors, where I have those pictures from my great great grandparents up to and including my mama and father(whom i have not spoken with in almost 21 years, but that is another story, for another time).


    Then of course there are the pictures that I myself have taken over theyears of my life. My friends, my family, my passions, my pets, my Ren Faires, my Faire Family, My tall, oh so dark Celt in his kilt...


    Then my eyes light lovingly on the paintings that my grandma and mama painted and I was gifted with when they died. They both painted beautifully and I am so honored to have their paintings hanging in my apartment.


    One of them I have hanging over my altar in my bedroom, it is my "happy place", my mediation spot, that I concentrate on when I attempt to meditate. This painting is where I go when I imagine my meeting the Lord and Lady. Within this circle of pine trees, with a brook tumbling and dancing on the right, there is on it's banks a small cirlce of stones where I dance with joy and sit and talk with the God and Goddess. Purple mountains rise behind the pinetrees as dusk falls and the deep blues of the night skies begin to darken. This is a gift, THIS cannot be replaced.


    I have rambled tonight and in my ramblinga have calmed down. My tears have stopped and I can breathe. It is quiet now, the fire engines have finally left perhaps now I can relax. I should try to sleep now, though I fear  it may be elusive tonight.


    Your pensive and oh so grateful,


    Amethyst