Better or Worse, Write or Wrong.

Over Thanksgiving break this past year I reconnected with an old friend over a couple of cheap beers in a noisy bar. He had recently fallen in love with a Danish girl while living in Thermopolis, Wyoming working as a newspaper reporter. She was visiting the U.S. on a road trip from California to New York when she and her friend backed their rental car into a windmill, knocking it over and sending the small town into a bit of a fuss. Jeff was sent to cover the story. In the months following the accident Jeff would visit her twice in Denmark, she would visit him in Wyoming again, and he would decide to move to Denmark and “give this a real shot”.

As a regular reader of his personal collection of writings on his blog, I asked how it was that I had never heard of what seemed to be a life altering event. Isn’t that what we do as writers? We write about what changes us, about what moves and what refuses to move, right?

“That’s just it, Ashley….” He would later divulge that he had been mulling this over for quite some time, fearful to vocalize it, “I think I am a worse writer when I am happy.”

“You are. We all are. That’s how it works.” Just like that. Matter of fact. Shockingly cavalier. And he wouldn’t know what to do with himself for the next two weeks as he processed this conversation.

He would e-mail me just before he loaded up his belongings and his dog onto an airplane and travel halfway around the world to courageously give love a chance. He thought about it and he disagreed, we are not worse writers when we are happy, we are just less likely to go to that thing which relieves our souls when the need seems morbidly less urgent.

But that’s just it, Jeffrey, that’s what makes us worse writers, when we no longer feel that turbulent push-pull of the pen and paper as if it is what makes our hearts beat and our lungs breathe. For better or for worse. For write or for wrong.

Finally

 Thats where I was last night, along with 39,999 of my closest friends.

 

I am so proud of my school.

 

From The Handwritten Archives

 Five Dollars and Some Sour Grapes

I know little of my grandfather. The facts I have come to know through a lifetime of being his granddaughter could fit into a set of salt and pepper shakers. They are facts learned and acquired. They are, for the most part not memories.

Rosier Delaney Catts was a man of small, almost delicate stature. He came from DeFuniak Springs, Florida. His mother went blind. He was a Navy man who lied about his age to serve this country and make a living. He married my grandmother, a telephone operator, after an introduction through his sister who worked alongside her. He was quiet, rather, silent most of the time leaving his daughters and granddaughters to our giggling and chirping.

My grandfather made clocks, fixed radios, and collected salt and pepper shakers. He had beautiful dark hair which was always combed neatly. He had dark eyes and olive colored skin. His shoulders were slightly hunched and bore the weight of his hardships- his family, memories of the war, long years of struggle. He spent most of his time in the garage. It was clear that Grandpa could have done without affection, for all intents and purposes.

Even still, I always felt a deep sense of endearment towards him. I recognize now, in my early adulthood the weight of his love for me, too, and it comes in the form of the only two memories I have of him.

 The Dixon County Fair happened during one of our visits to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in California. My dad and my Uncle Thor planned to take the kids (myself, my sister Brooke, my cousin Katelyn and my cousins Justin and Bethany) to the fair to save us from the boredom of the sweltering summer day. We had already dusted all of grandma’s figurines which, despite the monotonous implications, was a treasured activity for the girls. We got to touch them.It was very exciting but lasted only an hour or two. “Hide the silk flowers,” another game spawned from the lack of children’s toys in the house, had lost it’s luster too. So the dad’s devised a plan to keep us occupied and announced it to my grandpa, who was likely watching television in the garage at the time. Grandpa gathered all of the kids up in the kitchen and lined us up in front of the small table against the wall. He had us all close our eyes and open our hands. This meant we were going to get something, and we knew it. I was the youngest, and probably the only one that kept my eyes shut in spite of the anticipation. I felt the paper in my hands and his rough fingers brush my palms. We opened our eyes to find a five dollar bill for each of us. Money! I had never had so much in my whole life! While Brooke, Katelyn and Bethany did the “California Raisin” dance, I ran over to hug Grandpa. He smiled. It was the only time I remember his smile. A real smile from my grandpa. It was better than the five dollars he gave me, though I wouldn’t know it for years to come and would only realize it after I examined my memories of him and uncovered the word “melancholy”. Not to mention, he ignored his disdain for affection to allow me my love for it. And he loved it at that moment too.
     Funny thing about the Dixon County Fair: I don’t remember it. The last I remember of my five dollars was when my mom tucked it away in her purse and told me when I was ready to spend it she would help me. But I remember that hug and I remember that smile like I am looking at a snapshot of the whole thing happen.

The only other time I remember my grandpa in experience and not fact came one summer. It could have been the same summer but the circumstances were different. Fighting the same boredom that necessitated a trip to the fair, Katelyn led me behind the garage on the side of the house. She found grapevines earlier and wanted me to see them. They were tangled against the fence, taller than we were. Bunches of small green grapes sagged from the vines in heavy clusters of temptation. I was suddenly, unknowingly, in my very own Garden of Eden. After a few minutes of examining this treasure before me, I reached for one. It had to be in slow motion because before I could even get my little hand above my shoulder Grandpa appeared. I didn’t hear him come around the corner. I didn’t see his shadow behind me. I didn’t know he was there until he spoke. “Don’t eat ‘em. They’re sour and they’ve got seeds.” My hand shot back like I had touched a hot stove. I thought I was in trouble (because I was always in trouble) but in fact, he spoke with a certain undertone of joviality. He disappeared as silently as he came but a kind of sweetness lingered there in the air between us, and lasted until I defiantly snatched a grape from the vine and popped it into my mouth. They were sour. They had seeds. Katelyn and I snickered about it as my lips twisted and puckered, but I felt bad that I had ruined the sweetness Grandpa had given me with the very thing he warned me about. I don’t remember any other time that he spoke. But I still remember how he spoke that one time. And how he disappeared, knowing I would eat one, to allow me room to learn it.

 I like knowing my grandpa the way I do. I want more of the facts of his life to collect. I wish I had more memories. But I know him as he pertains to me, as he loved me, as he loved the other people in my family. He may not have known me the way the rest of the family does now, but I still think he got me. He might have been the first person in my life to actually get me. Whether or not he did, makes no difference at all; He made me think that he did in a profound way. That is how I know the weight of how he loved me.

originally written January 8, 2006