Writing About Carlene

Every single day I wake up confronting a fact of life I never imagined.  Either that fact presents itself as a sentence, or it shows up in the mirror, or I feel it in my joints at yoga class a little later on in the morning: I'm getting old!

Having recently photographed the astonishingly interesting Over-80 women in WOW--Wonderful Old Women, by Bonnie and Deb, I don't say "old" disparagingly.  It's a mixed word: on the one hand, it reminds us that the time ahead is way shorter than the times remembered.  On the other hand, it beckons exciting prospects ahead that we didn't have time or money to pursue when we were younger.

As I grow older, I'm getting much more selective in what I choose to do with my time--because there are so many things calling at once. Do you know what I mean?  Feeling like there are more things than ever that you want to do?  And worrying that you'll give out of time before you get them all done? That it is absolutely impossible to read all the books you still want to read, visit all the places you still want to visit?

When engaged in a project that interests me a great deal, I cast off the word old and proceed, foregoing sleep if necessary.  I was up most of the night writing a story Day and I hope to publish about Carlene,  Day's Nana. Nana to Day.

We three read a magazine called Bella Grace that is targeted to younger women.  They may or may not choose to publish what Day and I are writing, but I'm hoping they will--to give younger women a glimpse of one lively woman in her nineties who inspires strangers to ask her every day: "How do you stay so young at your age?"

She tells them she eats an apple a day.  She tells them she walks two miles every morning and loves oranges.  She tells them it's probably good genes, or that she grew up eating organic food before "organic" was a label.  Then she sums it up this way: "Gratitude. I have so much to be thankful for."

Remembering her childhood--the death of her ten-year-old brother when she was seven, the burning down of the house, the sweetness of her parents--I sat here on my bed and realized I had tears in my eyes.

I had questions.  I texted Carlene for facts. (The fire, she said, happened when Bob was a baby, before she was born--I'd always thought it happened in her lifetime.)

So now I'm getting out the pages she's written and will re-read her story in her own words today, as soon as I return from an afternoon party.

I have a lovable cast of ancestor characters.   I'm lucky that she's taken the time to write about them so I can  meet the ones I never knew and revisit those I knew and loved.  The one-never-met that I'd most like to meet is Cana, her grandmother.

Writing about Carlene is easy in one respect: I know most of her stories by heart because she's always been such a good keeper and teller of them.

But it's hard in another: Every detail is connected to all these other people, all these other lives, and I want to follow every single thread that comes up when I unwind this great big skein of story.