Past, Present and Future
A wise person once said, “Never erase your past. It shapes who you are today and will help you to be the person you’ll be tomorrow.”
I’ve been thinking about the past lately. In part, because I’m trying to stay home and stay healthy. As a result of the quarantine, I tackled a project I’ve been putting off for years – decades of photographs. Strangely, I was unprepared for the flood of emotions elicited by the pictorial history of my immediate family as well as the fuzzy black and white photos of generations past given to me by my late mother. Baby pictures. School pictures. Photos of beloved pets. Weddings. Grandchildren. Love. Laughter. Tears.
The second source of my nostalgia is A Woman Scorned, my soon to be published book. It features my childhood home and a father named Ed who played golf, kept honeybees and had a love-hate relationship with a beat-up tomcat named Clawdius.
This is not my childhood home, but it is very similar in size and appearance. We had an enclosed front porch, a big back yard and a full basement with two dank, dismal bedrooms and a windowless room dubbed “the fruit room” where canned goods were stored. Because of spiders dangling from the ceiling, I was terrified of the fruit room. All of the above are featured in A Woman Scorned.
I wrote this book for my sister. I wanted to evoke memories of our growing-up years, something we held in common and could laugh about together. We chatted often by phone and she couldn’t wait to read it. Sadly, this was not to be. Beth passed away last summer. Still, I feel her presence every day, cheering me on, toasting me with a celebratory glass of wine.
This is my reality today. What will tomorrow bring? I know one thing for sure: There will be love. There will be laughter. Their will be tears. Everything that makes us human.
What are you doing to pass the time while you shelter in place? Feel free to leave a comment. Enquiring minds want to know.
