The very first words of my very first NaNo attempt!
A Meaningful Life
Is there a god, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? I always believed so. I've never met Him, even unclothed from my body as I am now, but I could not find my mother, father, or sister in this wide universe, either, no matter the ages I searched or the speed of thought with which I traveled. If He is out there, I don't blame Him for not putting in an appearance. I have spent the time since my birthday being lost in this miraculous universe. I can't blame Him if He is off wandering in the glory of creation, too, and just forgot to come home.
When you're like this, it's easy to forget things, because what seemed important a moment ago loses all meaning in the next as a star tears itself apart in front of you and you think, "Next time, I shall dive into its heart and dance." I have traced with my incorporeal fingers the great Pegasus rearing in the sky, but I no longer remember my name.
I became a specter on the twenty-third birthday I shared with my twin sister. Her name is also lost to me now, eaten by the clouds of dust that drift the space between the stars, but the feelings of love still come when I think of her—vibrant, and breathing in and out, glossy with a light sheen of sweat from the unexpectedly hot fall day and her eighth month of pregnancy. She was due in November, and we teased her mercilessly about keeping towels and scissors on hand should she pop out my nephew at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
We were gathered around the rickety old picnic table, nails cut deep into the ancient wood that had seen snow and rain and little girls dancing in leis from the daycare my mother had run from our home when my sister and I were infants. That old table had seen more life than we, put together with much heaving and gasping by my father and uncle the year my parents moved to our town soon after they’d married. She had looked on, already aware of my sister and I, though she hadn’t told her husband. “He broke down and cried,” she told me, when I was of an age to understand such things. And even then I had wondered that my stoic, solemn father had shown such emotion. He rarely did in our daily lives.
That day, the picnic table was witness to white cupcakes, beribboned presents and unspiked punch, though I had a bottle of my favorite white wine chilling inside. The leaves had changed and fallen, leaving piles of crunching husks to drift around the back yard like great migrations of dead butterflies. The wooden birdhouse I had made at summer camp in third grade still dangled from the oak tree that oversaw the comings and goings of our family, the fishing line anchor frayed at the end but still holding strong.
“We should really get rid of that old thing,” I said, handing Sister a cupcake. “It’s hideous. Mom, didn’t you say you wanted to try and plant some begonias next year?”
Mother. My mother was still strong and youthful for having raised two daughters and worked a challenging job for more than forty years; when people asked me why I had gone into teaching, I always pointed to her, as if I needed no other reason. “She’s been a teacher for as long as I can remember,” I would say. “She started teaching Sunday school as a teenager, and loved it so much. She always encouraged me to do the same.”
“Don’t you dare get rid of that birdhouse! You gave that to me for Mother’s Day,” she had exclaimed, pushing her sunglasses up on her graying brows. She refused to dye her hair, calling it—and her wrinkles—a well-earned sign of her experiences. Personally, I thought she simply didn’t want to sit in place long enough for the hairdresser. Teachers learn to be creatures of movement, swooping in on wings of strict compassion as if the world would fall apart should they be a single moment late. My mother was of this breed; though we complained long and loudly about the eyes we swore she had in the back of her head, Sister and I had navigated the difficult waters of puberty without beaching ourselves on the rocks of adulthood thanks to her.
no subject
A Meaningful Life
Is there a god, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? I always believed so. I've never met Him, even unclothed from my body as I am now, but I could not find my mother, father, or sister in this wide universe, either, no matter the ages I searched or the speed of thought with which I traveled. If He is out there, I don't blame Him for not putting in an appearance. I have spent the time since my birthday being lost in this miraculous universe. I can't blame Him if He is off wandering in the glory of creation, too, and just forgot to come home.
When you're like this, it's easy to forget things, because what seemed important a moment ago loses all meaning in the next as a star tears itself apart in front of you and you think, "Next time, I shall dive into its heart and dance." I have traced with my incorporeal fingers the great Pegasus rearing in the sky, but I no longer remember my name.
I became a specter on the twenty-third birthday I shared with my twin sister. Her name is also lost to me now, eaten by the clouds of dust that drift the space between the stars, but the feelings of love still come when I think of her—vibrant, and breathing in and out, glossy with a light sheen of sweat from the unexpectedly hot fall day and her eighth month of pregnancy. She was due in November, and we teased her mercilessly about keeping towels and scissors on hand should she pop out my nephew at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
We were gathered around the rickety old picnic table, nails cut deep into the ancient wood that had seen snow and rain and little girls dancing in leis from the daycare my mother had run from our home when my sister and I were infants. That old table had seen more life than we, put together with much heaving and gasping by my father and uncle the year my parents moved to our town soon after they’d married. She had looked on, already aware of my sister and I, though she hadn’t told her husband. “He broke down and cried,” she told me, when I was of an age to understand such things. And even then I had wondered that my stoic, solemn father had shown such emotion. He rarely did in our daily lives.
That day, the picnic table was witness to white cupcakes, beribboned presents and unspiked punch, though I had a bottle of my favorite white wine chilling inside. The leaves had changed and fallen, leaving piles of crunching husks to drift around the back yard like great migrations of dead butterflies. The wooden birdhouse I had made at summer camp in third grade still dangled from the oak tree that oversaw the comings and goings of our family, the fishing line anchor frayed at the end but still holding strong.
“We should really get rid of that old thing,” I said, handing Sister a cupcake. “It’s hideous. Mom, didn’t you say you wanted to try and plant some begonias next year?”
Mother. My mother was still strong and youthful for having raised two daughters and worked a challenging job for more than forty years; when people asked me why I had gone into teaching, I always pointed to her, as if I needed no other reason. “She’s been a teacher for as long as I can remember,” I would say. “She started teaching Sunday school as a teenager, and loved it so much. She always encouraged me to do the same.”
“Don’t you dare get rid of that birdhouse! You gave that to me for Mother’s Day,” she had exclaimed, pushing her sunglasses up on her graying brows. She refused to dye her hair, calling it—and her wrinkles—a well-earned sign of her experiences. Personally, I thought she simply didn’t want to sit in place long enough for the hairdresser. Teachers learn to be creatures of movement, swooping in on wings of strict compassion as if the world would fall apart should they be a single moment late. My mother was of this breed; though we complained long and loudly about the eyes we swore she had in the back of her head, Sister and I had navigated the difficult waters of puberty without beaching ourselves on the rocks of adulthood thanks to her.