Dappled moments (#1 and #2)

Painting copyright © 2020 Tasha Wainwright.

Writing novels always felt forced and contrived to me: I don't see my life, or anyone's, as one grand story with a continuous plot that reaches a satisfying climax. My writing, at its best, is a series of moments, vividly described — and that's what any novel I tried to write always ended up being, with most of the moments not even related to the main plot.

That's how my life has been, too — the image that comes to mind is the sea when sunshine stipples bits of water, making sparkles.  So I've decided to just write about those moments. Maybe they'll add up to something or turn out to be related in ways I don't see now, maybe not.

On a good day, the moments are enough — I don't have grandchildren, but I've known lots of children; a friend told me a few days ago that hers still quote me. Just that day, her daughter had sent her a photograph of her puppy, with the caption “precious loaf.” That's what I said when I first met baby daughter, and the saying passed into their family lore.  

I don't remember saying that, but I hope my life holds more moments like that, things I said or did that meant something to other people. But here are the ones that meant something to me.

My grandparents' house on the visit below, in my young uncle and aunt's living room (my grandmother would never have allowed the beer bottle and messy papers in hers). I am the big sister.

One of my earliest memories is of overhearing my parents talking about whether or not to send me to nursery school: I must have been in bed, listening; there are no actual images at all attached to the memory, just what I imagined as my mother said,

“I think she'd get a kick out of it.”

I was fascinated by the phrase and pictured a child kicking a ball into the air. I didn't know exactly what that meant — “get a kick out of it,” but it sounded fun, and as though she thought nursery school would be.

The other early memory had to have been when my mother, sister, and I flew to visit her parents. I remember a small white dish holding green gum, not wrapped, Chiclet shaped, which, the stewardess said, was to keep your ears from popping. And I remember above the seats opposite, where the luggage racks are now, was a made-up bed: dark blanket, white sheet tightly folded over it, white pillow, and my mother reading aloud to us from an orange book, Now We Are Six. 

I still have the copy that was hers when she was a child, printed in 1927.

My grandmother's living room on that same visit.

This wasn't planned, but those are the chairs I posted about in “Small Town Story,” and the punch bowl is now for sale in the antique store where "Some Actual Magic" happened. That's not much of a pattern, but I already see two others.