Lucid Waking

Archive for August 1st, 2009

Numbered Memories (2)

        “So…seven. Seven was the pairs of pointe shoes I went through before I stopped dancing. At first I wanted to be a ballerina for a living, but I had some bad experiences with teachers and dancers and decided the pressure to be skinny, flexible, and daring was too much. I liked who I was and I felt like I was being pressed into a mold so that I could survive the ‘Professional World.’ It was too much trouble so I became an author instead. Go figure.
        “Six was the maximum number of eggs my cousin could juggle at one time. He was amazing at sleight of hand and juggling and acrobatics. I think he joined the circus, literally, but I haven’t heard from him in a long time. He had a tough childhood, but he kept contact with my brother for several years after he ran away from home and went to acrobatics school. He lied about his age and just…well, it’s cliché, but he kept traveling with Barnum and Bailey’s until we last heard from him.
        “Five was the number of wishing stones I had. My dad would take my brother and I to the beach fairly often in the summer and he and I would look for small pretty rocks and then take them home. We’d put them in a pile in the back of the garage. But occasionally we would find nice flat rocks that were good for skipping. My dad told me they were magic rocks because they could fly on the water. We’d take these home and I’d put them in a shoe box under my bed. I only collected five before he died and we didn’t go to the beach anymore.
        “Four was the total number of vacations we took as a family of three. My mother never had enough money to splurge on traveling and it was her one regret. So, we’d pretend that we were going different places and dress up the house like a hotel. We’d do research on different tourist spots; good restaurants to eat—sometimes we’d even make food like they might serve in the places we visited. It didn’t take long for my brother to get sick of the idea and shut himself in his room whenever we ‘took a vacation,’ but my mom and I continued this tradition for a long time. My brother was often cynical, but I always enjoyed those times with mom.
        “Three…you know. I really can’t think of anything for three. Going over memories…it’s hard for me because I have so many of them. And I don’t remember the memory so much as the emotion. It’s really hard to come up with this stuff out of the blue.”
        “I know. We can stop here if you want.”
        “I’m inclined to agree. But I want to say that my mom was excellent and supportive and it must have been hard raising two children who ended up being clinically depressed, especially when an equally loving parent and partner dies during the difficult years. I had a crazy large family, but they all made sure we ended up all right. And we did. I did. A lot of my triumph and success has been a large part my mother and then my brother. I don’t talk about her much, but she did more for me than I can express.”
        “Is that what you want to say to your children?”
        “I hope to teach my children a lot more than I can express, but I’m going to wish them the best and hope they remember that happiness is in their making.”
        The phonograph clicked to solid silence and the needle glided back to its resting spot next to the record. A young woman in her early twenties picked the record up by the edges and gently slipped it into its sleeve.
        “Was that my great-great aunt?” she asked solidly to the man waiting at the window.
        The man nodded. “Yes. My great-great grandmother.”
        “And the man—”
        “Her soon-to-be husband.” The man at the window walked over to the phonograph and picked up the record. “I thought you should listen to this since you’re so interested in researching your past.”
        “You don’t need to sound so cynical,” the woman said, smiling. “But thank you so much for letting me listen. I had no idea…”
        “You can take this if you want,” the man said, extending forth his arm with the record. “You might get more use out of it.”
        “Don’t you want to listen to her voice?”
        “Not really,” the man shook his head. “I never knew her. It doesn’t mean that much to me. Do take care of it, however.”
        “Of course,” the woman said and thanked him before exiting the apartment door.
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Author’s Note on Post 332: It tried getting into a little bit of the human psyche here. That sounds a little too deep, but I wanted to "edge human experience" (whatever that means). With each increasing number I wanted each story to get more personal and the "coda" to kind of show a lasting legacy of the record. Stories are stories no matter when or why told.

I’m not sure how clear all of that was, but I needed to finish this story regardless. It was getting too heavy handed for me. And large.