{"id":10449,"date":"2021-05-09T06:05:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-09T13:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=10449"},"modified":"2021-05-08T07:06:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T14:06:42","slug":"history-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/history-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"History Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Susan Bono<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been rummaging around in already full closets lately, trying to find space for all the stuff I brought home when I emptied my parents\u2019 house last May. It\u2019s been rough going, but I stopped wondering why when I realized Mom and Dad lived in their house for thirty-seven years, only eight years longer than we\u2019ve lived in ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our youngest son often encounters me staring into space clutching a quilt, wood carving, or photograph. I think my uncharacteristic attempts at organization are making him nervous. \u201cWhat are you doing? What\u2019s that?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, this is some of your Great Aunt Emily\u2019s needlepoint,\u201d I tell him a little too eagerly. \u201cThese are my Barbie clothes, and here are the baby rompers your great grandmother made for your grandfather back in 1925. You wore them once yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I give him these family history updates knowing full well it\u2019s all drifting into one ear on its way out the other. At twenty-two, he doesn\u2019t have a sentimental bone in his body. But as long as he keeps asking, I continue to supply the disregarded answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telling these stories is a kind of test. I\u2019m trying to figure out how much I actually know about the Scotty dog napkin ring, the china baby doll, the anniversary clock, the piece of Native American pottery. If I don\u2019t remember what my parents told me about these things, what can they really mean to me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just stuff,\u201d I heard myself say as I watched people carry off Christmas decorations, books, camping gear, and clothing from the garage sale I organized to clear my parents\u2019 attic. But I might as well have said, \u201cIt\u2019s just stories.\u201d Stories that connect me by an ever-thinning thread to a world that is disappearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember asking my own mother, \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d and \u201cWho are those people?\u201d when I caught her sorting drawers or photographs. I thought I was listening to her explanations, but I didn\u2019t retain much. The tiny, mirrored powder box with the ostrich puff, that silver thimble\u2014I know they were her mother\u2019s, but what about the rest of the story? I\u2019m sure she told me more than once, each time straining to remember what her own mother, dead before I was born, had told her. It\u2019s only now that I understand how the story of an object becomes more precious than the thing itself when there\u2019s no one left to ask about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan Bono<\/strong>, a California-born teacher, freelance editor, and short-form memoirist, has facilitated writing workshops since 1993, helping hundreds of writers find and develop their voices. Her work has appeared online, on stage, in anthologies, newspapers, and on the radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1995-2015, she edited and published a small press magazine called Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative, <\/em>as well as the online component that included quarterly postings of micro essays and a monthly forum dedicated to craft and process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was on the board of the Mendocino Coast Writers\u2019 Conference for more than a decade and was editor-in-chief of their journal, the Noyo River Review<\/em>, for eight years. Susan often writes about domestic life set in her small town of Petaluma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This essay can be found in her book, What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home<\/a><\/em>. Find out more at susanbono.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally published in Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative<\/em>, Editor\u2019s Notes, Contest 2009 issue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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