Ninety years later...

I'm working on a writing project. Something I've thought about for a couple years. I've finally begun.

The project?

• Refine my story narrative I first wrote in 2008, which I've expanded since then.
• Select memoir pieces, refining them as well, that go more in-depth (than the narrative) into certain life events.
• Print out the narrative and select pieces so I have hard copies, which I will place in three-ring binders.

I think of the two different writings (narrative and memoir) like a bowl.
The narrative is the rim.
The memoir pieces fill the bowl.

I'm to the second part of the narrative. And it's getting hard. Just plain hard.

One (there are more) of the hard things is that I want to be accurate, but memory isn't the most reliable source. I know people know that. And that is part of memoir -- knowing that some things might be disremembered. It's not that the narrator is dishonest or making things up; but rather, the way our brains work, filtering and categorizing. Some memories are vivid, but still might not be accurate. Someone else might remember the same event differently. Other memories are vague, but might be more accurate than the vivid ones. Other memories are stored deep in the memory banks, and maybe forever filed away.

*~*

6/28/20

I meet with Marta tomorrow.
Carol, you've got to work on your story.
But I need to find Mrs. Wierwille's book to get that one section done.
That means I need to go through the boxes. Uugh.

I hired Marta as my mentor. We meet via phone every two to three weeks. I read to her whatever I've reworked in my story. She gives me feedback. Hiring her also gives me a follow-thru incentive; she's like an accountability person.

Maybe you shouldn't be doing this project. You've been dragging your feet.
But you know if you start typing, you're feet will pick up pace.
But what difference does it make? It will probably never be read, except by me.
Maybe the kids will be interested when they are 60.
And maybe not.

Go find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

As I rummage through the stacks of boxes, I come across all sorts of memorabilia. Even some of John's paystubs from jobs he had while in high school. That was funny.

But I can't find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

Damn it. I hope I didn't loan I it out and it went down the black hole. That's a signed copy, with a personal note from her. There's a whole story around that. A significant story. Dang it.

As I continue to rummage, feelings of discouragement lurk about whispering, What difference does printing out my story make?

I open another box.
And staring at me is Memories of the Civil War. A loose leaf, nine-page, typed memoir piece written by my great aunt, Drucilla Watkins Cotner, in 1930 when she was seventy-six years old.

Wow, I'd forgotten about this...

I pause and flip through the pages.

Wow....
What a find. Especially now during our current civil unrest.
I'll read this tomorrow, or at least this week.

I gotta find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

I finish looking through the boxes in the stacks. No Mrs. Wierwille book to be found.

As I walk away searching my brain, wondering where the book could be, I see a large box under the table. I'd moved it there, away from the other box-stacks, when Covid started to make room for a grocery-sanitizing station.

I open the box and there it is, Born Again to Serve by Dorothea Kipp Wierwille.

It was the easiest box to get to, but the last place I looked.

But if I hadn't rummaged through the other boxes, I'd never have found the treasure.

The next day I read Aunt Drucilla's words.
Ninety years after she penned them...