Journal Entry~ San Francisco

I'm back after a bit of a hiatus. 

Been traveling quite a bit this year 

 finally somewhat post-Covid,

and it's not as easy to write on the road as one might think. 

At least not for me. 

I've been going back and forth between ideas for the new novel

(or trying to sketch it out)

and my memoir. 

I reread a journal entry from my memoir notebook this morning 

that I'll share further down the page. 

When I was 12, my mother moved my sister and me, against our will, 

to San Francisco for five years. 

In our younger (read: less wise) days,

we tend to spend a fair amount of time blaming our parents for our shortcomings. 

(Again, can't speak for you, but I did.) 

While I felt I had plenty to blame my mother for,

as I was entering San Francisco one day not long after my mother died,

in the middle of crossing the Bay Bridge

admiring the gorgeous skyline of my favorite City, 

it occurred to me that I had not considered that I had her to thank 

for this stunning, uber-cool, sparkly, knock-your-socks-off City. 

My every bit of love for it, every memory, 

my almost painful feelings of nostalgia and missing it

and the feeling of coming home and going on vacation at the same time

every single time I return. 

I had her to thank for all of it. 

And I will never be able to thank her enough! 

Entry:

"… It was no mistake. She was yours for a reason. You chose her just as she chose you. You were each other’s gifts. You were her gift to her world, the essence of herself to live beyond her limited time. She was your painful and difficult yet chosen, highly necessary and magical gift. Your gift to yourself.

… She gave you San Francisco, which means every single memory, person, feeling, thought you have about it. She gave them all to you. All the love for it. 

Jasmine (the 4 yr old who lived next door and became your first paying babysitting job), that adorable little soul who barely remembers you now, but you will never forget. 

Ghirardelli Square. Golden Gate Park. Union Square.

Riding up and down with her in the glass elevators of the St. Francis Hotel. 

Sundays on Mt. Tamalpais (Family Day- which we didn't want but Mom insisted on) with our blankets in the grass, French bread and Jack cheese, our comics and books and THE most stunning views of the City ever. 

  Liz. Which also means your first painful death experience in this life. She gave you that too. And she was there for it and comforted you and took care of you afterward.

… Land’s End with your favorite gorgeous, heartbreaking views of the Bay. 

 The haunting Marin headlands and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Picnics and family barbecues at Baker Beach.

Mountain Lake Park.

… Liz. And John and Patti and Susan and Wayne. Your unsurpassed high school view of the bridge.

… She gave you all these things and these people. Your love for Marin, your fond memories of holidays in Kentfield. Your dream of living there someday. Even your love for Pompeii, a gift from the book given to you by the patriarch (not long for this world) at those family gatherings. 

It all has to do with your heart, your writing, your evolution. 

There was absolutely no mistake... "

This entry came from a beautiful writing prompt from 

the writer and feminist theologian:

Meggan Watterson. 

The prompt is to connect with (think of) a being of your choosing:

Spirit, ancestor, a deceased loved one, a patron saint,

and begin the page with the phrase:

"What I want you to know is..." 

And write from there. 

Give it a try. 

You won't be sorry. 

(Photos copyright: Kirsten Steen) 

 

Arahova at Delphi~ Travelin' Tuesday

Today's photo was taken in a small, mountain village (Arahova) near Delphi, my favorite Greek archaeological site which can be seen here. Greece is sprinkled with these gorgeous old fountains sometimes well-kept, like this one, and sometimes they are remnants of the Turk's stay in Greece and ignored, abandoned and defaced.



Random Writing Prompt:

Create a story around the owner of the mop you see leaning inside the fountain. Is the owner male or female? Young or elderly? Cleaning the fountain? Their own home? Or working for someone else? Or... does it have certain traveling powers?

Random Prompts~Our Parents

(Photograph copyright: Kirsten Steen)

Am spending this 4th of July weekend at the beach, specifically the beachhouse of my childhood! It was the place my grandparents took us every summer for years; where my sister and I played jacks on the floor, made forts out of driftwood and castles on the beach. We drew our names in the sand with mammoth curlicues, tried to catch the skinny-legged sandpipers and collected bags of whole sand dollars, colored rocks and two-toned shells.

It's also the house where I spent my last beach trip with my ailing mother before she died of cancer in 2003. This last mother/daughter visit is an excruciatingly painful memory. I've been to the house since with family and again with friends but this time I go with no easy human distractions from this memory.

Last year I created an altar to my parents. I decorated it with a few of their things: a picture of my mother on her tricycle in little-girl curls, scraped knee bandaged; a jar holding the ponytail she saved of her long hair when she cut it short; her desk nameplate; the small fireplace broom that was her last gift to me.

Next to these is a picture of my father as a tiny, proud fisherchild in dark sunglasses holding up his catch; a poem I gave him recently by Czeslaw Milosz entitled 'Gift'; a photo of him with his sister (my middle namesake).

I've added a few other things of meaning: a small bell my family kept on the hutch, a broken watch, a tiny handmade Celtic cross found in the South of France, a hand-embroidered dove made of cloth, the little angel I placed next to my mother's bed while she lay dying.

And at the top of the altar sits a picture I found of me as a small girl, holding my dolly out to someone just out of the frame. An offering.

Some time ago, I came across a writing exercise (sorry to say, the author escapes me): Write about your parents, both individually and as a pair; their likes and dislikes, habits, strengths, weaknesses; their good and bad qualities, character traits, beliefs. When the pen falls aside, what insights poke at you regarding your own purpose in this life as the creation and culmination of the two of them as well as the whole of them?

My beach time this weekend (since my sister now lives far away and won't play jacks with me) will most likely be in search of sand/stone and hand-written gems from the salty deep for my altar. And with that intention, I know I'll find just the right treasures.

(Oh yes and finishing a new poem to celebrate my sweetie on his birthday.)

I never understood the tiny broom gift (particularly since I didn't have a fireplace at the time). I just considered it another example of the effects of chemo. But I'm beginning to see that her soul knew what mine would need. It will come in handy as I write this weekend, sweeping up the ashes of that last beach memory.

An offering~ to the Gods of Insight!