Tirza ~ May 4

 

Do I really want to write about my family, the very one I declare I’d like to divorce?

I’ve spent much effort with time to heal myself of so much in my past, and now finally can feel free of the obligations, the beliefs, the projections foisted on me. Now that my life is finally my own, why go back, even if it’s only in my memories, my words, my blurbs?  Why am I drawn back in?

Is it a way to achieve closure? Yes, thank you, I think I’ve done that.

Is it a way to reconstruct the past from this stronger more independent self, so that the memories are cleansed of debris, of past interpretations, like so many rags then hung on the line to dry in the sun?  But what’s to prevent me from being soiled in the very act of washing?

Is it that my past contains so much good material for stories within stories? And do I want to tell them?  Is it just another obligation, now transferred from daughter - sister - aunt to writer?

 

I don’t want to get too theoretical or psychological here, but this is fundamental. 

Why? Why dredge it up? 

Writing about my parents, I found myself steering clear from certain memories, sheltering myself from being buffeted by past storms.  And to think that inevitably I’d have to bring up my siblings…who are still alive.

 

Why not write about finding and growing the love of my life that began only a few years ago?

Why not write poems to the sky?

Why not smell the lilacs and attempt to describe their scent by how it slowly swirls into the nostrils like the gentlest caress, like their purple, color of enchantment.

 

Why not find jokes to be retold in unexpected places?

For example, when I was googling for the structure of “--walked into the bar” jokes the other day, this one turned up:

 

        “The past, the present and the future walked into a bar.  It was tense.”

 

Now please tell me how I can be the bartender and keep things flowing, and without throwing them out into the cold outside time.