portrait of a young girl

We've been reading a story, a long story. Over a period of days. Because we can only read under certain conditions. Outside. At night. Under a porch light. Or with a flash light. Or by the light of a single candle, which is how we finished reading tonight.

Is it possible, do you think, that someone on the other side of the world, someone you've never met, can look at your face in a photograph and know whole parts of you? By separating pieces of your very visage into something resembling a Picaso, (eyes here, nose there, smile all willy-nilly) they create a composition. They study the wrinkles around your eyes, or how you like pink polish on your fingernails, or the way your hair falls across your face and fill in the blanks to make up the story of your life. Then, there you are on a piece of paper. A written version of a person you should know everything about.

* * *

Even if she wrote it out from beginning to end, it still wouldn't make sense. There would be giant gaping holes in the plot, like craters on the moon. Miles wide. She thought she'd been careful about it. Collecting moments one by one and adding them in like ingredients to a favorite recipe.

Sometimes she went days without adding anything to the story. The picture didn't seem to speak to her. She felt uninspired. Lost. Other times she wrote pages and pages. Words came flowing out like endless rain, like the song by the Beatles. Some days all she could manage were lists of words. Like, "forté" or "dream catcher." Or a phrase. Like, "In celebration of our country."

The girl played Salut d'Amour on her violin at night when no one could hear. She liked pink nail polish the very best, the kind that came as close to red on the color wheel as possible. But not red. She was partial to orange poppies but ate all the red Starbursts first. She favored crushed ice instead of cubed because it was easier to chew once the water was gone. In the summer, she sipped lemonade and dreamed of sailing the seven seas. She was afraid of odd numbers when doing math, but preferred them to even when making an arrangement of some sort. She ate handfuls of Swedish fish and chocolate covered peanuts at the movies because she loved the combination of salty-sweet. If she could live in an art museum, she would, and secretly she wished she could golf.

But none of that was in the story. Because those things can't be discovered in a photograph. They were left out, along with so many other details that didn't seem important. So the story was unfinished. Incomplete. It sounded like someone was playing a violin solo without an A string, (although she heard that Itzhak Perlman did that very thing in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center once. And she loved Lincoln Center.) It was a song without a chorus, and everyone knows the chorus is the very best part, or why would they sing it so many times?

Like a picture without a caption, or a face without a name, the story sat open-ended, a choose-your-own adventure with nothing to choose from. She hoped someone would pick up where she had left off. That someone would look at her smile or the way she squared her shoulders in the photograph and pick up the pieces. That they would put pen to paper and finish what she could not. Because you really can't tell everything about a person from a single snapshot or even a photo album, especially if you've never met them and especially if they live halfway around the world. It's what happens between the frames of film that makes up the portrait of a life, not the portrait itself. And one day, when all the details have been scribbled down, someone, somewhere is going to read the story aloud, perhaps at night under a porch light, and the listeners will hang on every word.

what's the rush?

Yesterday evening, after dashing about rain drops and hopping over puddles I found myself safe withing the confines of the car. I wiped big beading raindrops from my black suit pants onto the rubber mats of the car, and began to wonder. Why is it that we dream of this glamorous grown-up life, full of business-casual, and pearl earrings, and electronic devices with which we can check our email, look up the word "careful" in Spanish, while simultaneously talking to someone four states away about a project that is bigger than us both? Why, I wondered, do we rush rush rush to this point in our lives, only to get here in all our high-heeled glory, only to find ourselves hoping we didn't miss significant steps in our childhood?

I replayed the day in my head on my way to my next destination: a room full of 150 or so grown-up women, all gathered together sitting shoulder to shoulder to listen to a real grown-up woman, tell us that we're going to make it, and questioned whether or not I believed her.

Astronauts Anonymous

In elementary school I had a crush on a boy who went to space camp. It wasn't his affinity for astrology that made me fond of him. I remember being terribly embarrassed about his absence from school for a week in Florida to pretend to defy gravity and squint through telescopes. The only positive thing I could think of was the possibility of eating space ice cream, which to me, is delicious, especially the Neapolitan. Other than that, the thought of him following in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong was a bit...out there.

However, as the years have rolled on, I've found myself wanting to recant my space camp chides. There have been many a sweet night's sleep on the deck at the cabin, the prelude to which have been Dad pointing out constellations as we stare at the Milky Way, visible from the spot Grandpa plotted so many years ago. I spent a memorable summer night with a few girl cousins outside the teen bunkhouse on a ranch in Antimony, UT and witnessed what was the most spectacular star show I've seen to date. Year in and year out there have been August nights with E and O, comforters spread across us on the front lawn when we've looked up at the endless heavens, stared off into the darkness and planned our futures (none of which included space camp, but perhaps they should have?)

The truth is, as much as I didn't want to be into space, I am. So, the other night when I had the chance to look through D Man's new telescope, I bundled up and bounded out. I took one giant leap for woman kind and was out on the driveway squinting into a telescope and studying the moon. Dad not wanting to give up the opportunity either, was right behind me. His reaction was probably the most priceless: "Oh my stars!" he gasped, eyes as wide as flying saucers. (Even with his naturally punny tendencies, he didn't realize he'd said it.) We all took turns, all in disbelief at what we could see. The moon seemed touchable, all craters and textures. Mountains and valleys. I resisted the urge to usher all on-lookers inside to watch October Sky, although it might have to be our next neighborhood cinema screening sometime soon. Perhaps in my free time this summer I'll look into Space Camp. Apparently all the cool kids are going. (N and O, I'll make sure there's a spot for three.)

Same. Here.

I've been staying at 1928 for the past few nights while my parents have been out of town. It's always nice to stay at home, however small the stint. There's safety here. Security in knowing the Rs are next door; that Dr. Steve is home, just in case, and that Sentinel Chauncey is on patrol in the event that anyone ferocious need be taken care of. To look through the window on the landing just before bed and see the light on in the kitchen across the way, or to pause before going up the stairs and see a Stevens standing at the command station by the phone in the dimness of the night, sketching out a To Do list or writing a note to a sibling to be tacked up on the white kitchen cabinet. There is such safety in the known; the expected. It fills the senses with contentment, and creates a sanctuary of sameness.

Tonight as I gathered the trash and bundled it up for it's frozen foray out into the wintry night, feet treading the same path of grass between our house and the R's, all felt routine. Duty done, I retraced my path and I found myself locked out at 10:45 on a Saturday night. Wanting to flee the freezing cold, I went back along the path to the R's to get the spare key. Steve greeted me at the door, and sifted through the basket of keys, a ritual all too routine. There is one problem (as if being locked out isn't problem enough) our keys look exactly the same. I took a few look-a-likes in hand. I sensed their sameness and hoped one was the replica of the key resting inside.

Moments later, I was on the phone with little brother (Rich The Rescuer we shall call him) who wouldn't be home for another half hour. I often stand in that spot at the R's, that nook where the phone rests, and look up at the very window I peek out of at my parent's, wondering if they ever do the same. That night, while twisting the phone cord out of habit, I turned to see the light on at the top of the landing in the empty house I was locked out of. I decided to sit for a bit, then took the R's car over to the YBH to retrieve a few things. (I was locked out there, too).
I arrived home just as Liv was pulling in the driveway. I greeted her at the halfway point, directly adjacent to the paths between our two houses. We chatted for a bit and then she pulled in right next to where I had just parked the other car for the night. Strange the adage The more things change, the more they stay the same. How driving that car made me feel like I was babysitting at R's again, that is until O drove up, all beautiful in the driver's seat.

Change spins all around the sphere of sameness; this world of looking through windows and retreiving spare keys. In all this growing up and parting ways, most moments I feel the same. I don't feel grown up. I don't feel like a babysitter, either. Rather I feel I'm at the path inbetween. Grown Up isn't the known. It's not the expected. There isn't a sense of sameness like repeating steps to your favorite spot in the tree house or tying the knot on your gypsie dress up skirt the same way you always do. There isn't a window to look through or a light to switch on. There aren't tracks in the snow between houses. It's you and only you. Man vs. The World. And truthfully, I'm a bit scared of forging the rest of the trail. Of taking that step and shutting the door of The Same. Just in case, I'll be sure I have a spare key.

between four walls

I spent part of my afternoon at 1932 today. Grandma and I spent time going through photos and rearranging art in the dining room. It was much needed; to be in that house, around her, among those things -- pictures of her and the family. Pictures of grandpa, handsome in his navy whites. A picture of the house in Iowa with the attic room long enough for the boys to throw the football indoors and far enough away from the rest of the house for noisy card games on Christmas morning before it was time to unwrap presents.

I spent time running up and down the stairs searching for a few things for our project today. One of my favorite views of Grandma's house is the one from halfway down the stairs, just as your hands hit the banister. The front half of the living room is visible, the mantle, the little desk and chair and the oil painting near Aspen Lane. You can see the alcove where the doorbell chimes hang and the little picture of the sunflowers right beside the latch to the front door. Out the window nearest the fireplace is the side yard where the peonies bloom along the picket fence in the summer, filling the yard with fragrance.

From that fixed point today, I thought, I hope someday to have a home as lovely as this, full of things with meaning and memory. A summation of a life well-lived. A place where children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can come and sit and stay awhile and listen to stories about Cape Town and Stockholm, Pelham or Brigham. A place to send thank you cards and letters from far away places. A place where wedding pictures gather above bookshelves on the landing upstairs and mementos are tacked up on the bulletin board in the basement bedroom. A home that says hang your hat, rest your head and help yourself to the Snelgroves in the freezer.

Grandma's home is lovely from any angle. I have memories from every nook and cranny in that house. From the green laundry room downstairs to the off-white closet in the room where Mom and Karen used to sleep. I love that house. I love the feeling I get when I walk in the backdoor or drive up the street and see the shutters open or the light on over the sink where the green glass rests on the windowsill. But mostly, I love Grandma. I love who she is, what she has accomplished and the person I want to become after spending together.

Round

As we walked west towards the mountains, he asked questions. Questions I have answers to. But, in the moment of the day, when the sun was sinking below the wintry skyline, I didn't feel like answering. Fully. Wholly. I gave flat answers, like a flat character in the plot that is The Story of my Life, and what I hope to be The Story of my Life. Really, I want my life to be full of round characters. People who go places and experience things that help them discover. People who add layers to who they are, to who I am, like rolling stones gathering moss, gaining circumference as their gyre widens. Characters the reader connects with. Characters whose oddities and inclinations jump off the page and become dear to the reader. So much so that when the reader turns over the last page and closes the cover, they feel that something in them has died. That they have parted with a best friend. Not only a friend full of self-discovery, but that the reader discovers themselves within the discoveries. I wish I would have said that.

I wish I would have told him I don't just want to help people, but I want to change them and be changed by them. I want to be the only member of the church within many miles and have the opportunity to teach the gospel to people who have never heard it. I don't want them to hear that I believe it. I want them to know.

I wish I would have told him I want a best friend to spend days like this with. To go here and here with. To live in a Big City with and make it our own. To bundle up and walk along the streets with on the evening of the first snowfall. To come home to and cook dinner with in a tiny kitchen we can barely afford. We'd take visitors to our favorite side streets in town, show them the best art museums and favorite eats, and then kiss them goodbye until we come home for a short summer stay. I want to know what it feels like to be lonely in a place where you only have each other. To know what it means to sing, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and feel the warmth that comes from excited voices heard when walking in the back door.

I wish I would have said all sorts of things. That I would have talked his ear off, because I know he would have listened. You're quiet tonight, Martha, he said. I put my hands in my pockets. I know. When the last of the purple skyline folded into the mountains to fall asleep, silence set in. As the two of us walked in tandem, along some un known longitude and latitude on this round earth with round places and people and life to experience, all I could hear was the sound of our feet, walking towards the future.

{images via flickr}