No regrets

I was cleaning my house yesterday and found under my bed, among the cats and cat-sized dust balls, a notebook from my senior year in college. It’s a rectangular, spiral-bound job, of a size that could easily fit in a canvas book bag or a crowded suitcase. 

The last half of the book was loaded with notes from Intro to Psych, one of my fall ’81 college classes. The first half of the book is a journal I kept while on a two-week family trip to Ireland that August.  

First page, dated August 11, I wrote this about our rental, a red Toyota mini-wagon: “The poor Jap car was  a stick shift and didn’t enjoy 4^th gear; every time we began speeding up, it stalled. Father, of course, became somewhat apoplectic.” 

“Jap” car?

I called my dad Father? 

Apoplectic?

Wow. I was an idiot. Still am of course, and still overusing of course.

And I have to laugh at something else that hasn’t changed all that much, my frugality/ stupidity when it comes to spending money.

I imagine most folks who keep family vacation journals save them in special places like plastic bins or cedar chests. Me? I figured the notebook was only half-used so why spend a buck on a new one? Why not use it all up for something else? Like a class? I didn’t even waste one page. First day of notes starts the page after our last day, which was in Cork at the Oyster Tavern where per my notes, “the food was excellent and, according to my father, the cheapest meal we’ve had so far.”

I’m two weeks into an education class right now, one of those state-required things. First night, as I was headed out the front door for the five-minute drive to the class that was starting in less than three, I realized I forgot to buy a notebook. So I grabbed one from the stack of half-filled ones on the dining room table. Now my Sheltered English Immersion class is sharing note space with my writings from Les Standiford’s summer workshop on narrative and the hero’s journey.  

Luckily, I throw out next to nothing. So though my notebooks may not be excessively organized, they’re all alive and well and gathering dust somewhere, either here in my house or in the cellar at my parents’.

And now I have this online blog to add to my writing chaos.

Anyone who’s been reading this knows I write about all kinds of things. I know I should be more focused if I want to draw a larger reading audience. Like maybe I should write about marathons all the time. Or single motherhood. Or cancer. But sticking to one specific topic is not who I am right now. I have a lot on my mind. It’s enough of a struggle some days finding socks that match. If I’m going to write, I need to organize my way on my terms.  

Today I want to write about a conversation I was part of last week. Because it involves loved ones, I won’t be super specific, though if you know me really well, you’ll figure things out.

We were having some wine and somehow got on the subject of who we wanted to be when we were younger.  

I’d just gotten done showing off my awesome Maine Marathon medal and had mentioned I was headed off soon for yet another marathon. When I got asked why on earth I was doing this to my body, I explained that I was taking the runs nice and slowly and was doing my best to keep safe. I mentioned evidence that most studies say running does not ruin your knees, and that in fact running can enhance your life as you age.

I revealed my grand plan: fifty marathons, one per state, no deadline, no time goals. I said I had dreams about who I wanted to be, and there’s no time like the present to start working on them.

Me: Certainly, you must understand about goals?

E takes a long gulp from her glass and her eyes get big and thoughtful. “Of course. I always dreamed of becoming. . ."

Me, interrupting, because I think I know her so well, “A writer.”

E has always loved the written word. Her mother's cherished school books from Ireland are tidily stored in the bottom drawer of a polished cherry chest in her living room. Her father’s writing desk, a cheap nothing of a thing but here all the way from Killarney, is her most prized possession. Every waking minute of every day off from work, when she wasn’t napping, or playing for hours on her piano, she was reading. Even now, in retirement, books are her favorite companions. I was pretty sure I’d nailed it.

E shakes her head. “Pianist. I wanted to be a concert pianist. I wanted to play for Cornell.” 

Cornell? I shake my head. In all the years I’ve known her, I’ve never heard this. I ask what she means.

Her mouth becomes an angry line. She drinks as she explains. Her voice is flat and low. Sometimes she laughs and the sound of that laughing is so bleak and joyless it kills me. She says that when she was sixteen, her father died suddenly. This, like breathing, I have known since before I was born.

E explains she was set to audition for some prestigious scholarship program connected with Cornell. I don’t know the details, but the way she described it made me think it was a gateway to bigger things and world-class opportunities, like Broadway, Carnegie Hall, the London Symphony Orchestra.

E says that after her father’s death, her mother wouldn’t let her play the piano at all. Not once. Tradition. No music for thirty days. Because E didn’t practice, she got rusty. The audition was sometime near the end of the thirty days. E ended up not trying out.  

E finishes with this: “I had dreams.” Her eyes are far away.

I feel like I’m at a wake. The room feels that heavy.

The other one at the table is silent this whole time. He’s watching me wipe my eyes. When E stops talking, he says to me, “What’s wrong with you?” His voice is harsh.

I shrug and avoid his eyes. I say that it’s just so sad. We should never give up on our dreams.

He usually laughs off these serious moments. But today he nods ever so slightly at me, which makes me wonder about his dreams. I wonder what he thinks about what E has just said.  But I don’t want to ask him. I don’t want to know.   

I take a sip of my wine to still my mouth because I’m afraid of other things I might say, layers worth of stuff that have no business being part of this conversation at this point in time. Even now my brain goes there. I think about what shapes us: love, loss, ethnicity, religion, our families, friends, our choices because we always have choices, don't we?   

I wish I’d written this down last week, when I remembered more. Glad I was able to get at least this much out. These are things worth remembering.