“Close your eyes and recall your earliest memory. (or very early memory). Where are you? How old are you? Who is with you? What emotions are you experiencing? What is going on in the scene around you? Consider the sensory experience of this memory and explore it in your writing. What do you see, taste, feel, hear, or smell?”
My hand is gripped tightly, being squeezed in my mother’s larger hand as I walk into an office building on States Street, in Rochester, New York. Could I find this building today? I'm not sure. I was not yet five years old? I usually walked into this same space with my father's grasp, as I remember his hand had a different force about it. I want to believe it was less fearful and more loving. Is this the truth, only in my imagination? What I can remember is the largeness of the freight elevator and the spaces in the wooden slats as we rode up to the floor where my father had a rifle range. For years I had a fear of the space between the doors and the floor of the elevator.
I have always been told I should write a book. Stories have been my coping and I am keeping this Blog as a way to record parts of my history. I also have promised my son I would get my stories on the computer. As I spent hours this afternoon looking at my paper trail, I will not be held back, I am remembering and expanding on my truths and what I have found charted in journal and legal pads. My very important friend who was pivotal in my childhood friend’s passing, has given me a drive to move forward with a sense of urgency.
