Time

I look back sometimes and think about how old my grandparents on my dad's side are, to have been born in the late 40s/early 50s somewhere, living right after WWII in that time when everyone lived in fear of the next nuclear bomb. It seems even more impressive when I think of my Morfor, my grandfather on my mother's side, born at the end of the 20s, living through the Great Depression but in Norway. Did it affect Norway? He abandoned his rich family there and came over to the USA with his wife before my dad's parents were even in high school.

Then I think of my Great Grandma Parish, and how she was born in 1912, and how strange that must have been to grow up in the Gilded Age, the sexual revolution, the Great Depression, multiple world wars. How strange it must be to have lived through that transition from women wearing dresses to women in pants, cars hitting the market, airplanes, computers, the space race, and so much more. She lived through all that and has never had a tooth pulled.

My Morfor's grandparents would have lived through the American Civil War. They wouldn't have taken part in it, seeing as they were in Norway, but it happened while they were alive. What was happening in Norway then? It's a little disappointing to think that I don't know. They saw the turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s, which seems like a far more drastic turn to me than 1999 to 2000 was.

It brings me to what I've seen come and go. I think CDs existed when I was young, but I always listened to cassette tapes. Those haven't been sold in new for a long time now. I've seen Walkmans and CDmans come in and out of style, and several generations of iPod. I've seen the switch from corded phones to cordless to unlimited cellular, and it seems so... strange. They feel insignificant against some of the things my grandparents, and even some of the things my parents have seen, although theirs also feel quite insignificant.

It's like, the more distant the past, the more important it feels. It's so long lost to us now. We can look back, and some groups try to imitate it, but it's not possible to truly live it any longer. I wonder if I would have enjoyed that lifestyle when I lived then, or if I would have always dreamed of seeing electricty not only in houses for our newfangled lightbulbs, but in our pockets, readily available. I wonder if I would have dreamed of carriages and plows that didn't need horses pulling them.

My mom looks back at when she lived on her big farm, 7 miles from her nearest friend's house, and how much fun it was to hop on her pony and ride over there. They would ride to Walmart together, tie their horses to something that worked as a hitching post, and go in and buy an ice cream. They would leave their horses outside without a worry. Every time the fair came to town, they slept in stalls at the fair grounds rather than riding their horses to and from it every day.

That was the 1970s, in New York. Not that long ago, in a state generally viewed as very urban. I could never do any of that nowadays. I have the horse, sure, but not the safety, and everything is nearby. Even with it nearby, people are worried about letting their children walk several blocks to a friend's house. That's another thing I lived through: the stage of 'kid's should walk everywhere' to 'there are kidnappers everywhere, it's not safe for kids to be left alone'. I still walk a lot, but my youngest siblings don't, never have.

Funny how time never really feels like it's passing, life never really feels like it's changing, until I look back and consider how things were at various thens. Just a few years ago, video tapes were still sold. Now we're experiencing a transition from the DVDs that made them obsolete to BlueRay.

It feels insignificant, but I bet my grandchildren will think I lived through a heck of a lot of ancient things.

It was one of those nights when home wasn't where she wanted to be.
She needed to get out, to run, to see those dark old paths, visit those old haunts. There were those rusted blue garbage bins, there were those dying maples. There was that old cafe, the alleyway, the crumbling apartment.
All in her mind, all in memory. Where they belonged. There was no reason for her to go back, but if she left, she knew that was where she would go.

It was where he had gone, she remembered. He had gone back and she had needed to guide his wife there. It had been the first time she talked to her. She had warned her in a note, but never spoken with her. Then he had gone back, and the phone had rung. "Where is he? Do you know where he could have gone?"

He had gone back, as she was longing to do just then. Not for him, not for those old, abandoned times. Things had changed so much for her over the years, and it all felt so fast. She wanted to go back into her memory, run her fingers over those rough bricks, scuff her feet through that dust and cough when it rose to her face, and peer through the grimy windows at the dim, smoggy moonlight.

None of it was possible anymore. The building was gone. The bins and trees were gone. The smog was gone. The place was not built on yet, but it would be. It was an empty, weedy lot now. The memories there had been demolished. She knew it. She hadn't been there, but she had seen the pictures. She had felt a twinge then. It was only a building among buildings, a rotting, forsaken one that would have fallen on its own eventually. But it had been a home. It was no longer, and yet she wanted to leave home now to see that one again.

He shifted beside her in bed, snoring softly, as always. It had been strange the day she realized she couldn't sleep without that noise, once so irritating. She couldn't sleep away from home any longer. Yet she wanted to get away tonight, not to sleep. Just to run; to run, and see those old places, now lost.

She put a hand over her stomach, ever so slightly rounded now. It was destined to distend more over the next few months. She could remember when he would never have considered this. Even more, she could remember when she never would have. So many things had changed. Things were wonderful now, but just for a moment she wanted to go back. Life had come at her so fast, and its disruptive course was now being disrupted even more by this unrequited desire to leave.

It was drawing at her feet now, pulling them out from under the covers against her will. It had been an age since she had last been attacked by this urge, and back then she was able to give into it without a thought. He would worry about her now though. Perhaps her husband would go to her old friend, as his wife had once come to her. "Where is she? Can you help me find her?"

She would worry about herself, and him. She would worry about him worrying about her, a circuitous thought of a sort that had never before occurred to her. That was how things were now; it was always what his thoughts could be that were on her mind rather than what hers were. Perhaps she needed this break. She was sitting up now, although she wasn't quite sure when she had done so. He was still asleep, broad chest rising with each calm breath. Perhaps he wouldn't wake at all. Her feet were on the floor. Her fingers clenched the edge of the mattress, as though some parts of her were still wanting her to stay, while so many others weren't.

She'd be back.

What?

There was a time in my 9th grade Honors English class where I wrote an entry in my Writer's Notebook about some Monarch butterfly I saw at a park. Not too much earlier, my teacher had recommended I read "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard, and I simply fell in love with the book and writing. Now, I wrote this butterfly entry, later turned the notebook in, and got it back with the comment from Mrs. Reuel: "This is Annie Dillard-esque."

I always save comments I get on things, but this is one of very few that has just stuck in my head. Mrs. Reuel gave me plenty of wonderful comments- spoiled me for them, really- and I've held on to every one of them, but most are too long for me to simply remember. That one, though, was very short, to the point, and... I don't know how to explain how wonderful it felt when I read it. To write with the deepness of thought Dillard attains is something I aspire to.

The main key with Dillard is that she knows how to put things into words. I'm horrible at explaining things, but she can touch up on every little thing and show an astounding understanding of it. I want to be able to think, if not write, like that. Her style is not how she orders the words, where she places a sentence (personally, her structures tend to bother me), but that she thinks on and understands things. I want to stick by my usual style, but include this more intense aspect in it.

So for the blog. It's main point is simply to practice observing and writing on my observations. I don't know if people already feel like I do that in my Sparrow's Nest blog, but trust me, this one will be different. More natural, and spared of my rants and irritability. I want to come at things with an open perspective and just watch, think, learn, and write.

Now to begin the project: Attempting Annie Dillard.