Now that my people have gone back to their own homes, I'm residing in white space, gazing at the snapshots in my mind of the past week. The art world also calls this "negative space," the empty areas around a focal point that create breathing room. 

When I began this foray into making collages, books, and photographs, I filled the entire page, the more the better. Gradually, over time, I've realized that a close up of one person, maybe two, against a white or blurry background can have more impact than a line of people against whatever background happens to be there.  It is, at least, a different kind of storytelling.  

For the sake of convenience, all of us carrying iPhones, most of the pictures we took were not particularly interesting, just thumbnails to jog our memory of a  good week together.  We line up.  We smile on cue.  The plates and residue of restaurant meals are in the foreground. Or racks of Spurs merch--as Marcus wanted to get a Number One shirt.  Three of them blowing out birthday candles, 47, 47, 20.  Two of them celebrating graduations;  Elena giving everyone rides on their four-wheeler and her horses. 

 

We went to Fredricksburg on Saturday, texting each other when we got separated: "I'm here, where are you?"

A handsome young man saw me struggling to walk and gallantly took my arm and led me across two streets.  An example of kindness used to be "helping an old lady across the street."  Outwardly grateful, I squirmed a bit inwardly realizing what part I played in that equation!

On Sunday, my ex and I are both there, guests in Will and Bonnie's new house. For years after our divorce, we were stiff and awkward around each other.

But on this day, there were moments of laughter at shared memories of the Sixties and Seventies.  We are the elders, the only ones in the room who remember Huisache, Magnolia, and Mistletoe, 1967-1969.  Or our cabin on Beckmann Hill in Helotes before Day was born, the voice of young Willie Nelson drifting through the cedars. We are the only ones who recall riding motorcycles on the ragged hills and into deep ravines. We're the only ones who recall our dingy little shared hometown in Georgia with all its life-shaping subtexts. 

Our children and grandchildren listened, laughed along, probably less at the content of our stories and more at the improbable scene of their grandparents chatting and laughing together!  Bonnie tells her father-in-law, "I have never heard you laugh like that!" 

Little flash bulbs in our minds illuminated a past that belonged only to us. 

When, inevitably, the time comes for them to disperse, I know we've reached the completion of this week of togetherness and I miss it before they're even belted into their cars. 

As they head back to their other lives--college, work, summer plans--I'll hear echoes of all these beloved people.

I wonder if we'll ever be together in this exact configuration again: two grandparents, long divorced, one of whom has a girlfriend he's never married; the oldest of the grandchildren with a newly minted graduate degree; the youngest of the grandsons about to start college.

When they leave my house on their last night, I feel alone in empty space for a while, wondering: Now what?   I feel like texting them: "I'm here.  Where are you?" 

Birthday Night at The Pearl

Marcus is 20!