Oh my, Matt. That repetitive, hypnotic phrase, those long, long melodic sentences, the images you conjure. You have told us your family here on one page. A difficult feat. So beautiful. This little 50-story is meant to evoke the same feel. You might like it.
As you do, I have some images in my head that I never could hold and capture. my mother died of cancer when I was twelve, after a very short illness we children where kept in the dark about, and one day, out of the blue, my father and grandma came home from hospital and announced the truth of her just having 'passed away', without much more of decorum. After that every single bit of her belongings was removed and disappeared. All of her carefully collected clothes and jewellery, the little she possessed, as personal belongings in a household where everything centred around my father, the influential and important doctor, was destroyed, given or stored away, never to be seen again for us, unimportant daughters. I treasured a soap dish, for travelling, that she had used. A scarf that, for a little while, had kept her smell, a scent of orchids and butter, a hint of leather or fur, a small animal, a cat, a rabbit. sorry, I have to stop this...
Thank you for reading and sharing, Ivy. That sounds like a trauma bound to haunt you for the rest of your days, though I'm glad you have a few precious items to hold onto.
i’m sorry, i didn’t want to take the narrative from your beautiful piece and turn it into mine. i’m full to the brim with these memories and reading something like your words feels for me like a prompt. i hear you. i feel much of your pain. it chimes with mine.
Your writings so honest and raw, hard to read at times, it stops me in my tracks and forces me to really take on board what you’re uncovering. Powerful stuff. X
Thank you, Barrie. There must have been a hundred other objects in the kitchen next to the orange cup. I can remember a bar of green Fairy Soap, a few sticks of chalk for the children to scribble on the wall with, but little else. On Mum's dresser, only the hairbrush among so many other items. It makes those few that we retain so much more powerful.
Mm, I suspect the reason I find it all so touching is that we didn’t have a family home in that way. The life of a military family was a pared down, out-of-the-packing-boxes existence … I was away at school aged 8 and so even more ‘reduced’ to clothes mainly that changed with each term. No memories of the kind you have, ones that tell the story. My memories are events, and even then I suspect they are reconstructed to match the ‘family history’, as others want to remember it. I like that your writing has me pondering all that.
Oh my, Matt. That repetitive, hypnotic phrase, those long, long melodic sentences, the images you conjure. You have told us your family here on one page. A difficult feat. So beautiful. This little 50-story is meant to evoke the same feel. You might like it.
https://sharronbassano.substack.com/p/stranded?
Not a word too many, not a word too few
Not many writers can hold our attention these days with long complex sentences. Matt proves it still possible.
As you do, I have some images in my head that I never could hold and capture. my mother died of cancer when I was twelve, after a very short illness we children where kept in the dark about, and one day, out of the blue, my father and grandma came home from hospital and announced the truth of her just having 'passed away', without much more of decorum. After that every single bit of her belongings was removed and disappeared. All of her carefully collected clothes and jewellery, the little she possessed, as personal belongings in a household where everything centred around my father, the influential and important doctor, was destroyed, given or stored away, never to be seen again for us, unimportant daughters. I treasured a soap dish, for travelling, that she had used. A scarf that, for a little while, had kept her smell, a scent of orchids and butter, a hint of leather or fur, a small animal, a cat, a rabbit. sorry, I have to stop this...
Thank you for reading and sharing, Ivy. That sounds like a trauma bound to haunt you for the rest of your days, though I'm glad you have a few precious items to hold onto.
i’m sorry, i didn’t want to take the narrative from your beautiful piece and turn it into mine. i’m full to the brim with these memories and reading something like your words feels for me like a prompt. i hear you. i feel much of your pain. it chimes with mine.
Not at all. Touched that there is something that connects.
Your writings so honest and raw, hard to read at times, it stops me in my tracks and forces me to really take on board what you’re uncovering. Powerful stuff. X
You sound like you have the makings of a very good therapist! :) Thanks so much, Kirstie. x
Ha! Career no4 maybe?!
Have a lovely day x
You too. x
Matt, this is so beautiful … so heartrendingly poignant. There’s an incredible generosity in the way you invite us into such personal insights.
Thank you, Barrie. There must have been a hundred other objects in the kitchen next to the orange cup. I can remember a bar of green Fairy Soap, a few sticks of chalk for the children to scribble on the wall with, but little else. On Mum's dresser, only the hairbrush among so many other items. It makes those few that we retain so much more powerful.
Mm, I suspect the reason I find it all so touching is that we didn’t have a family home in that way. The life of a military family was a pared down, out-of-the-packing-boxes existence … I was away at school aged 8 and so even more ‘reduced’ to clothes mainly that changed with each term. No memories of the kind you have, ones that tell the story. My memories are events, and even then I suspect they are reconstructed to match the ‘family history’, as others want to remember it. I like that your writing has me pondering all that.
Such a different scenario, just as bewitching for what little was there for you, how much was missing, I’m sure.
I might make some notes about it. Thanks for the nudge. X