Memoirous

Riding my bike on Memorial Day I passed many cemeteries dressed for the day. Spruced up. All the old flowers gone, the lawns cut, the gravestones cleared of debris. Ready to receive visitors. That’s how we used to spend Memorial Day as a kid, visiting my grandmother’s grave in Kentucky—and a few others that I could not understand who they were in our lineage. The tradition started as a way to honor those fallen in past wars. Growing up World War II was still somewhat fresh. That was a good war. The Vietnam conflict, never properly recognized as a war, was complicated. We didn’t have any family that had died in war. Dad was a Navy veteran and my mother’s brother had also enlisted and a few other uncles who had married Mom’s sisters. Again, we didn’t need to honor them because they were still alive. Anyway, while visiting grandma’s grave—a person, by the way, that I didn’t feel a great connection with as she had passed when I was a toddler—I would explore the graveyard and read the...

Possibly because I’ve been reading the letters of poets Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge (SEE link my last post, http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2023/06/all-this-thinking-correspondence-of.html ) between the two, I’ve been dwelling in the past. Add to that I’m old. Not old old, but thumbing the pages of social security mail sent to me, encouraging me to sign up for Part B—or is it A, and is it Medicare or Medicaid, is it anything? What are we assured of? I’ve been dwelling in an existential crux, thinking about mortality, the passing of an age. Maybe family makes us/me think about all this. I remember after both my parents died within a span of months, going back to Ohio to clear out the dregs, the last of the last at their extended living facility/house in Canal Fulton. I thought it was no big deal. I had a car, gas money, the time—all the factors that have usually vexed me in getting away from my “normal” life in Chicago. My plan was to stay at the house and slowly unwind e...

I said I would try this year to put out some writing prompts. I’;ve been reading Peter Orner’s Still No Word From You, a collection of essays often inspired by books he’s reading, so in a fractured mirror or multi-layered memory where I’m prompted by something Orner’s written in response to something he’s reading: I give you—ticks. Again, a memory involving my father. I had a propensity to walk in the woods near our house (the woods was eventually plowed under for a highway bypass), and with all this walking I’d take a rest and lie down under the trees staring up at the sky or the underside of leaves. Later, at home in my bed after a shower trying to fall asleep, I might notice a lump behind my ear or attached to my skull. I’d go downstairs and there would be Dad reading by the light of a lamp or the glow of the TV—Hey, what’s this? I’d ask. A tick. This is before Lyme disease or the fear of catching anything from the bloodsucker. He’d get out his tweezers, maybe light a match ...

As a kid I remember one time my father taking me someplace in the car—except, for whatever reason, we both lost track of the bigger picture, and he ended up just driving while I was lost in thought looking out the window. At some point I must’ve “woke up” and said, Where are we going? Dad didn’t know. We were miles past the library or the YMCA, places he often dropped me off. It was a bit humbling, funny, but also poignant: spending that much time together where everything felt okay.

My sister and I used to play hillbilly magic, a kind of facile slight-of-hand. Where nothing magical actually happened except what you chose to believe. It consisted of holding two fingers together and the other person “slicing” through them. Or making two interconnecting Os with fingers and trying to separate them. Pointless games, no doubt performed when entirely bored. Like sitting in a waiting room with nothing to read or in the back seat of the car on a long car trip. No matter what I did she always won. An invitation by Nancy to play hillbilly magic automatically stacked the deck against me. And, why did I play? I guess because I wanted to be with her, even if it meant playing stupid games. Sometimes she would throw in Three Stooges moves. Such as if I did manage to slice through her fingers she’d punch me in the arm. Again, if I knew it was coming why did I stand there? Maybe because I believed that someday it wouldn’t happen, that that was the trick. That I’d happ...

Over the weekend I read about a new genealogy website, actually a controversy brewing over a genealogy website that spends time analyzing the present—and perhaps, eerily, revealing too much information, about you. In the the article a woman did a people search and her name popped up, not unusual as she was an author, but the troubling part was that at this website the names of her children and their ages was listed. So this wasn’t so much about researching the past, but the present. She didn’t want that info out there. I’ve been off and on conducting research into my family. What I find on the web is both interesting and confusing. For example one bit of misinformation about my dad has snowballed into all the websites that collect and generate genealogical information. It started with a misprint in an on-line newspaper obituary and spread from there. He did not die in 2001, but in December of 2011. Yet, now and forever on the WWW he will have died in 2001. That date will carry ...

I’ve been think a lot lately about early-onset Alzheimer’s. I think it has to do with the recent death of Pat Summitt , former head coach of the Lady Vols at the University of Tennessee. She was only 64. There is another reason I am saddened by her death: My father loved the Lady Vols. He watched every game he could on television. After retiring my parents moved to a kind of “Stepford Wives” retirement community where every lawn was groomed, the houses perfect, and the residents (mostly white) golfed and drank martinis. Maybe it was a bit like Mad Men too, with a dark underside. Anyway this community lay along the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, so close to the basketball action for that state. On weekends you’d see cars with little flags whipping on the back of SUVs Go Lady Vols. The women were taken just as bit as seriously as the men. And Pat Summitt was no joke, but the real deal. No one wanted to get between her and victory. She coached the team to eight NCAA cham...

Souvenirs. Postcards. Today these words almost seem quaint. My husband and I once when traveling told our host in Slovenia that we would send him a postcard from our next destination. He seemed puzzled. You mean like an auntie or my grandmother? I guess it did seem rather old-fashioned—especially since we could easily send an email or upload a picture from our phone. Or any number of things. And easier too. Our next destination was Montenegro then Albania. How does one even ask for a stamp in Albanian? How reliable is postal service? Postcards in the US have been known to take decades. Mail sent from the front during World War II is still getting delivered . I LOVE postcards. I buy them and send them and appreciate getting them in the mail. I save them and tape them to the walls of my office or upon the door to the room we have reserved for couchsurfers . Going through my parents old photos I stumbled upon old postcards. It seems postcard writing runs in the ...

I’ve been going through old photographs, in preparation to send them to a digital scanning service. Finally all those old scallop-edged photos from my parents, from the 1950s, early 60s will be on a memory stick so that I can share them with my cousins, brothers and sisters. I was extremely hesitant when sending them off. What if they get lost in the mail? What if the company I decide to use are reckless? You can insure mail, but you cannot replace these old photos. Organizing by size, etc, the photos became like a flipbook of the past. A past not even always shared. Some of the photos I have no idea who is in them. Where were they taken? I only know they are important, and, perhaps, an older cousin will recognize something and we can build on that shared information. How many times has an old photo opened up doors you never even knew about? Often I wonder: What happens to all those digital pics we take on our cell phones? With SnapChat they will simply disappear, but what...

It is now July and I went into a card shop. July had always been a big month for birthdays. My mother was born July 11 th and my husband’s grandmother Thelma’s was July 13. My father and daughter share a birthday, July 24 th . My habit is to take a walk or bike in the afternoon so I walked south on Broadway and found a shop selling cards. Looking over all the humorous and sometimes erotic ones, I didn’t think they were quite right. Then there are the earnest ones that don’t seem to work either. I just need something which says I love you. I miss you. I wish you were here. I wish things could stay the same. Always. But most of my July birthdays are gone, and though my daughter lives quite close we don’t see each other as much as we used to. Her two jobs keep her busy. So I left empty-handed and walked home, dreaming that maybe I would just pick up the phone and give them a call. in memory of Fred Burkhart, would have been 74 on June 23rd ...

As a writer I’m always getting edited. Sometimes as a person I feel like people are trying to edit me. Life can be challenging—much like writing a short story. Last week I received an e-mail via this blog about an essay I wrote over two years ago about Lake Erie called Wild Waves Motel. Tim wanted to catch me up on some of the facts my piece left out or entirely screwed up. My memory was definitely terrible. Mainly he and I connected over the emotional touchpoints. What I loved most about his taking issue with my memoir flash was his take or perspective. As a kid when I got up early to wander down to the water—can you imagine today’s helicopter parents letting their kid wander down to the beach alone?!—I’d occasionally notice one or two dead fish washed up. He also remembered the dead fish, for his own reasons. Lake Erie back then was a little better than a cesspool. It would be a few more years of concentrated effort and a decided shift away from manufacturing and indust...

Mom’s Fruitcake Just the word “fruitcake” evokes nostalgia for some and crass jokes from others. It has been the focus of much ridicule by people especially of my generation. Today’s “kids” probably donn’t even know what one is. (Not sure if they’re lucky or not— see I’m still stuck in a fruitcake stereotype.) I’ll readily admit I’m not a fan of the fruitcake. Maybe it was the rum or the sheer density of the thing. An absolute brick. My mom’s fruitcake probably weighed 11 pounds once wrapped and ready to mail. I remember Dad lugging a couple of these to the post office every year about this time in order for it to arrive before Christmas. I couldn’t help wonder: won’t it be old, stale, inedible by then? I had no idea in my child’s imagination that these things are archival. They literally can last forever. For me now, with both Mom and Dad gone, the fruitcake is a memory touchstone. Mom would shop for the ingredients because none of it was stuff we had around the hous...

Lately I’ve taken to staying up late watching tsunami footage on YouTube. I’m sure there’s an explanation for this. It’s been almost 10 years since that infamous Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, and it’s been about 1 year since the passing of both my parents. What do these two separate events have to do with each other? Nothing, except loss, and trying to understand the universe. I sit in the dark, in my cave of sorrow, waiting for that fatal wave to wash over me. And there is nothing I can do about it. Not a single thing can change what happened. The carnage and broken lives left behind after the water receded is not quite the same as the betrayal I’ve encountered in the wake of Mom and Dad’s death. Yet here I am, asking myself why. Just like a tsunami, I was caught unaware. I didn’t see it coming—just like those unsuspecting tourists gatheried on the beaches of Phuket in Thailand. They came out to see a phenomena, the bay suddenly emptied of water. They had no way of knowing...

It was one year ago December 11th that Dad passed away. Just wanted to re-post my eulogy for him. Still coming to grips (gripes?) with his death and the aftermath. We weren't a tight-knit, cozy family and now there is very little that draws us together. Dad--you are missed. http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2011/12/harold-caywood-feeback-1925-2011.html

You have no idea what to do. He was the only person you could ever talk to. Your sister plays high school varsity basketball and attends Bible study: two things you know nothing about. He was the only person who didn’t treat you like a kid. Your other brother flicks you on top of the head with his hard fingernail and makes jokes about niggers and watermelons—which you don’t get, not because you’re naïve about racism, but because you don’t find his jokes very funny. He was the only person who ever listened to you. To get Dad’s attention you’d have to turn off the TV. He was the only person who ever understood you. Mom gets a confused look on her face when you mention you’d like to be a writer. And now he’s leaving. Remember that time you walked together in the woods and you told him you were thinking about getting an M.I.A. bracelet and he said it was just a ploy to legitimize the Vietnam War. You never sent away for one. Don’t go, you begged...

           Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Since May I’ve been playing Solitaire. It started in the rain, in the blueberry fields. I was gifted with unlimited time during an artist residency in a small town in Michigan. I’d wake up and spend myself writing. From 7 a.m. until dinner with small breaks for exercise and meals I’d revise. The work went well. In the evenings I’d sit down to a light supper—either pancakes or lentils. I didn’t have many supplies and without a car, I’d have to bike to Coloma or Benton Harbor for groceries. Except it rained almost everyday for a week. It was just me and my laptop—since the TV hardly worked and I didn’t have Internet access. I decided to check out the games. Hard to believe I hadn’t done it sooner, but I’d never been this bored in my entire life. I finally learned how to play Solitaire. I loved the way the cards fanned out, even the sound effect of shuffling—you know, of stiff cards getting twacked at the corners—excited me, made me feel three-dimensional after a da...

So settling in here at Blueberry View—almost wrote Blueberry Hill, like the song—I’m retreating and recouping. In fact a Blueberry fairy brought me some just baked whole wheat bread and a spring flower on my front steps. Many of you already know but for those just now joining us, I lost both my mother and father this past winter. Routine smoothed over the grief, as well as just being with people, but I knew sooner or later I would have to go through a process, a time of examining and reexamining. I’ve been going through a book I bought at this year’s AWP called God in the House: Poets Talk about Faith. I brought it with me on the retreat and have been spending time with it each morning. The book encompasses all beliefs—even one I’ve never heard of before Quaganism, which is about pagan Quakers. It is amazing what I can lift off the page. After the chapter on Wicca and Zen, I fell into thinking about Dad. The two are not related. And wrote this in my morning journal. Between We...

Live Your Life For a Change I never realized when I started this blog how freeing it would be. Imagine: the ubiquitous of the Internet--there are over 651835100 million active users on Facebook--and yet on this public forum I am invisible. I track my stats. I have a few readers, but largely I can say anything without fear of offending or slandering. It's like I can tell all my secrets. Hours before Dad died (unfortunate timing, to be sure) my sister told me I had been written out of my father's will. Later my grief clung to that revelation, wanting to milk it. But then Christmas rolled around and my daughter came home from college and the things that were important to me returned. We celebrated with homely gifts, either handmade or bought for 25 cents from floor sales. We, all three of us, agreed it had been our best Christmas ever. Then Mom passed--and the details of the will have again come back into focus. If my dad had just been middle class then this all probab...

All this going back and forth to Ohio—I’m ready to be done, to go back to a normal routine. I need to eat a salad to make up for all the eating. A run would put some miles between the long drive there and back. Regular stuff like washing my hair and a long bath would help to transition. Back & forth. There & back. What is normal and what is routine about a life now changed, cleaved into separate parts? Before & after. I want to go back to before. Before Dad died surrounded by family and before Mom died alone in the hospital. Stop time. Make up for lost time. Rewind. Here & now. I’m left with this side, the rest of what is to come. Forever & ever.