The Burden of Memory, Revisited

A little over a year ago I started this blogging website with no clear expectations for what it would become. In my welcome statement on the homepage, I gave my modest reasons for wanting to do this at this stage of my life. I admitted that whether I found an audience didn’t matter, I was really doing it for myself. While true enough, that statement wasn’t the entire truth. Deep down, I knew that, for me, the only real meaning to come from this endeavor would be if I could somehow reach others, even a handful of readers, who could relate to what I was trying to say by the sharing of some of my most precious memories, both the sweet and the bittersweet. Well, I’m here to tell you, that has happened in a way that has been most gratifying and a continual amazement to me. Many of you have become loyal readers from the beginning, letting me know often by your warm, sometimes effusive, comments here on this website and on Facebook that you like what I’m doing, anxiously awaiting each new post. However, some of the more reflective and personal remarks have come directly to my inbox or have been shared with me face-to-face. These are particularly appreciated. Equally, I’m always delighted to learn that someone from my long-ago past, someone I haven’t seen or heard from in decades, has been following my writings without having let me know but enjoying them just the same. Whichever the case, I have been humbled and honored by the way you have responded to my feeble efforts to tell my story. For that I have nothing but thanks and gratitude.

One thing this newbie to writing has discovered is that getting my thoughts down in a cogent way is hard. (My friends who are fellow writers and bloggers are grinning at me right now.) In a few of my early entries, I attempted to circle around at the end to bring the story back to a neat, clever conclusion that ties it to its beginning, a la Sean Dietrich or the few other popular bloggers I read. I quickly discovered that my attempts at such cleverness most often came off as lame and contrived. It just wasn’t the authentic me.

Surprising to me, some of the pieces I’ve written started out as one thing and turned into something entirely different by the time I peeled back a layer or two. Often, as I began typing, the story itself told me what it wanted to be, and I had not realized its true nature beforehand; I had no choice but to let it go where it wanted to go. The only thing I knew for certain was that I was being driven to tell it.

Some pieces almost magically came forth whole, requiring only minor editing to polish them up once I got the words down. Others were extremely difficult to write, requiring long rumination and reflection in addition to numerous rewrites.

And a few pieces came with tears brought on by the memory of loves and losses and the recollection of people who helped shape me during my most formative years. These are the individuals who made me into who I really am—the true me at my very core. Posting these most personal and poignant pieces for public consumption and then receiving your generous and genuine response to them has been the most validating part of this process and has brought me immense joy.

In my very first blog piece, titled “The Burden of Memory,” I said that recent events of late 2019 and early 2020 had changed me in ways I didn’t see coming. I spoke of the loss of my older sister, Judy, to cancer. I mentioned that I had finally decided to enter full retirement. And, also, that we had just put my mother, who has been debilitated by dementia, into a nursing home just a few blocks away. I explained that these things had significantly altered my relationship and regard for time and that as a result I was being forcefully compelled to share some of my thoughts and recollections in hopes of strengthening old relationships and building new ones. And that in so doing, I hoped also to remind myself of who I really am. [Click here if you haven’t read that earlier piece or would like to revisit it.]

That’s me, seated in the photo’s center, at age 16, with a few of my cousins in July of 1970. We wee down at Papa Bond's farm and homeplace in the Beatrice community of Stone County, Mississippi. This image is also on the homepage of this website. I chose to present it again here because a close friend from those long-ago days recently told me that this is how she remembers me. Her statement pleased me greatly, as this is how I most often remember myself when I think about my Big Level days. In my mind, this image very strongly represents the true me.

I now realize that I didn’t fully comprehend the depth of those statements that I, myself, wrote a year ago. At the time they felt true enough, and they sounded authentic to my ear, but little did I know how true they would become to me and how deep and revealing this journey of self-discovery would be. One surprisingly revelatory aspect of this blogging experiment has been the realization that the writing process has changed me—more significantly than I could have imagined. For one, it has made me more receptive to the emergence of some of my long-buried feelings of loss and hurt. Being able to see them through a light filtered by age has made me more open to reevaluating those old scars afresh. I have discovered that the very act of writing about these more painful memories has changed how I regard them, bringing healing and renewal in the process. I find that they now no longer haunt my dreams and weigh on my subconscious thoughts. It seems the burden of these old haunts has been lifted. To me, that’s a remarkable relief, cathartic even.

And now I have come to find that a wholly new and unexpected set of recent events has again changed me in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Though my family members and some of my closest friends will know some of what I’m referring to, I would prefer not to be too specific on the details here, as these are things that should remain private, at least for now. Rather, I’ll simply say that there have been more than a few tears of sadness lately, only to be followed by greater amounts of joy and inner peace from forgiveness and healing. One day I hope to share some of these things in these pages. And knowing what I know now, I’ll have to write about them. For one, so many of you have asked me to continue writing—as I said, that has been immensely validating—and I wish to honor your requests. For another, I’m increasingly being driven by a deep-seated compulsion to relate my story in more honest and open ways to those I love and care about the most, including those I have recently reconnected with, as well as to those out there I don’t yet know but who are also looking for meaningful connection. So, my dear and faithful My Back Pages readers, let’s turn the page, I’ve got more stories I want to tell—stories I’ve got to tell. For me, that’s the burden of memory.

These are two of my favorite t-shirts of late. The one on the left is my Grateful Dead shirt. I purchased it last year during the height of the pandemic. It seemed to ideally capture the strangeness of our shared COVID ordeal. The other carries a double meaning, particularly when spoken, that delights my wacky sense of humor. Now, both shirts seem to nicely encapsulate the wild emotional ride this journey through my back pages has been.

A WORD TO PONDER

Shar·ing (participle of share): apportioning to someone a piece or an allotment of a thing one possesses. To enjoy or suffer a thing or experience with others. The stem word share comes from the Old English scearu, meaning a cutting, shearing, or tonsure; a part or division of a thing.
www.etymonline.com

Note: To me, sharing is most often accompanied by feelings of warmth and affection for the ones with whom you are sharing. As I have come to rediscover by way of this blogging project, the sharing of one’s true self with another is the heart of any authentic and meaningful loving relationship.

SONG of the Day

“All My Favorite People” by Over the Rhine (The Long Surrender, 2011)

BONUS TRACK

“In My Life” by The Beatles (Rubber Soul, 1965)

This track is a repeat. I used it as the “Song of the Day” in my original “Burden of Memory” piece. For me, it still perfectly captures much of what I’d like to say, but it does so much more eloquently than I will ever be able to.