• About Judith A. Ross

Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears

Tag Archives: family

The Mystery of Memory

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by judithar321 in art, books, inspiration, meditation, writing

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

"We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves", family, Karen Joy Fowler, memory, psychology

My grandparents lived in a brick house with black shutters. It sits as it always has on a tree-lined street and maintains the solid address of 25 Cabot Street.

As you face the house, the driveway and yard to the right dip down at a steep pitch, flattening when they reach the back yard, making the lawn’s grassy slope a safe place for rolling or sledding, depending on the season.

The yard behind the house abuts a neighbor’s, and when my grandparents lived there, it was home to a couple of pear trees and my grandfather’s rose garden.

25 Cabot Street-photo-2

These are the facts as I remember them, and snapshots like this one verify my mental image of the place.

But the remainder of my memories of that house and its inhabitants — the scratch of my grandfather’s whiskers when I kissed his cheek, or the smell of the single rose he’d place in a vase atop a mahogany hutch in the living room — are mine alone. I don’t know what my brothers see and hear when they mentally walk through its rooms, if they do, or if that house haunts their dreams the way it does mine.

I loved my grandmother, but I adored my grandfather, and he adored all of us. Again, I have evidence: a photographic proof made in his basement darkroom with notes.

Poppy's proof

Poppy'snotes

Because he died a few weeks before my 11th birthday, my recollections of drawing with him at our kitchen table, or counting sidewalk cracks as we took our ritual Sunday walk around his neighborhood come in snatches like a crudely edited home movie.

My feelings connected with a time so long ago that ended too soon were reawakened as I read Karen Joy Fowler’s latest novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which explores the tricky terrain of memory.WE-ARE-ALL-COMPLETELY-BESIDE-OURSELVES-jacket_300x450-200x300

Rosemary, the story’s narrator, was five years old when her sister Fern was abruptly removed from their home. Rosemary’s earliest memories are of living on a farm, where she was heaped with attention, and where she and Fern were always together, a tangle of limbs on their mother’s lap. Until one day, Fern was gone.

What happened? The memories Rosemary has held onto for years are a quavery, incomplete version of events. Her older brother’s memories are another, more judgmental accounting of what happened and why. Eventually, Rosemary’s instincts reveal yet another story.

When an early connection is abruptly cut off, the depth of that loss is something one could spend a lifetime pondering and exploring. After years of tamping down some important truths, Rosemary eventually releases her memories and unravels the mystery of how Fern came to leave.

It is a fascinating read and well worth the tears that come during its deeply satisfying conclusion.

I’ve never had a sister, and I’ve never lost a sibling. Yet I understand what it means to lose someone important during your formative years. Their absence and your imperfect memories may haunt you. But you also might realize that some love is powerful enough to shape and sustain you long after time has reduced its face and voice to shadowy afterimages.

 

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Mid-day at the Oasis*

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, environment, friendship, health, inspiration, travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

family, food, gardens, Morocco, oasis

1-featurephoto

My son’s home in Morocco is right on the edge of an oasis. You only have to walk out his front door and turn right to step into an amazing landscape.

Karsten walks through the oasis on a daily basis. On this day, we were going to a friend’s house for lunch. We walked across a streambed, alongside an irrigation trough, and underneath a grapevine. Paul was a bit under the weather, so I had my son to myself that afternoon. After a year of missing him, it was treasured time.

2-acrossoasis 3-Let's go! 4-follow_irrigation 5-undergrapevine

We passed groves of date palms and olive trees.

6-oasis trees

7-olivegrove 8-olive

Like every other meal we were invited to in Morocco, this one included extended family. Our host’s parents, sisters, and nephews all joined us. A shy, but impish 4-year-old giggled as he rolled around on the floor with his djellaba-clad grandfather. After a delicious lunch of cous cous, we went outside and into the family’s walled garden.

wall

The small figs that go into savory dishes, like cous cous, grow here. (Click on the photos for a closer look.)

ekuran

As do dates. In the U.S., dates come separated in a plastic tub. In Morocco, you buy them in boxes and they are still attached to their stems. Until this garden tour, I had no idea what they looked like on the tree. These dates will be ready to pick in a few months.

dates

There were almond and pomegranate trees. The red flowers are pomegranate blossoms.

almondtree

pomegranates

At the end of the day, our host and his father walked us back across the oasis and home.

*I couldn’t resist.

This Year Will Be Different

20 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, friendship, mid-life transition

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

empty nest, family, friends, Thanksgiving, turkeys, Womens Voices for Change

This family of turkeys has been patrolling our neighborhood for weeks. There are five in all, and lately, they have taken to roosting outside our ground-level basement window.

We first spotted them over the summer: two adults, three chicks. Now we can’t tell who is who.

They stick together these five. And when they appear in our yard, I always check to make sure each one is present and accounted for.

They remind me that this year, Thanksgiving will be markedly different for Paul and me. Like other years, we will be sharing the meal with friends, but for the first time ever, neither of our sons will be at our table.

Older Son will be celebrating with his girlfriend’s family in Connecticut, and Younger Son will be cooking and eating dinner with a group of fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Morocco.

While this change makes me a little sad, I’ve begun to embrace the new order. Planning a meal and hanging out with friends —without the pressures of family— is a lot of fun. And this year, just like our sons, Paul and I will be doing that too.

I know I will miss them. Especially Younger Son, who is so far away and won’t be home for Christmas either. But I also know that the love they feel when they sit at our table will be with them on this day too.

Both of our boys have grown into loved men. They carry home with them wherever they go.

For that, I am truly grateful.

****

This post was published today on Women’s Voices for Change.

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