Telling Our Stories

  I don’t remember at what age Mom introduced me to Weymouth Landing’s old Tufts Library southeast of Boston, Massachusetts. What I remember perfectly about that wonderful day was her hand holding mine as we walked into Weymouth’s huge library to experience the absolute wonder of seeing all those warmly glowing wooden shelves filled with books! My two brothers and I had grown up with books around; our mother had turned two rooms of our home into a children’s kindergarten in the forties making more books handy to us than most other kids’ neighborhood homes. The words ‘more books’ on that amazing day became a relative term however because Weymouth Landing’s wonderful Tufts Library seemed to have millions! I stood inside the huge double door entrance gaping until Mom led me into the stacks on a quick tour explaining where each type of book was kept and which sections I’d probably be most interested in. Then we tiptoed to the librarian’s desk where, speaking in hushed tones and then signin

     I like to make lists.  Lots of tasks, written in no particular order, marching down the page.  My family loves to tease me about it; “ Mom and her lists!” they mumble, rolling their eyes.  My favorite part about making lists is crossing off what I’ve done.  Sometimes I even include things I’ve already finished just so I can cross them off and feel a sense of accomplishment.        Today’s list was pretty short:  Max to groomer’s; return fabric samples; go see Jan at the Thrift Shop, and   Memoir Club .  Sadly, there was nothing I could cross off without actually doing it.     I only had a half hour to see Jan before Memoir Club.  I grabbed my fleece off the back of the kitchen chair noticing the large stain on the upholstered seat.  Judi had spilled a mug of Dana’s hot syrupy goodness that he called hot chocolate last December at our first annual siblings’ cookie bake.  I made a mental note for a future list:  replace fabric on kitchen bar stools .      I reached into my purse fee

August 2001: It had been one year since my mother’s death. The year was complicated by family conflicts over her estate, and I was still emotionally raw from the losses.  My husband and I were vacationing at our favorite vacation spot,  Acadia National Park.  I was shopping at some of the gift shops in South West Harbor.  Specifically, I was in a little shop called “Hot Flash Annie’s”. How could I not go in/! I picked up a little glass stone with the word  JOY written on it.  It reminded me of a stone I had given my mother years ago that sat on her kitchen table for the rest of her life next to her bills, newspaper articles, and ashtray.   When she died I took it back even though it was covered in nicotine.  I was wondering how I would find joy again.  When I got to the register to pay for the stone, I began to tell the owner/cashier about my mother and the stone.  I stood there sobbing,  she came around from behind the register and hugged me and said,  “I know.”   I was comforted by

  It was spring and I came home from school with a notice that class pictures were about to be taken in school at the end of the week. This, normally, would not have been such a big deal but it was short notice and I needed a haircut before I was to be immortalized in an infamous school portrait. For another reason, this would not have been such a big deal because I lived in a family full of hairdressers and barbers. Out of my 11 aunts and uncles, 5 of them owned clippers and one of the family events on a Sunday night every month or so was a “clip in” in my grandmother’s kitchen, with my uncle doing all boys. I was going on 9 years old and secretly longed for a chance to get a real haircut, in a real barbershop like my Dad, without an audience of giggling cousins. It just so happened that the stars were in line and my Mom forgot about the picture date until the day before the big shoot and it was crunch time. It didn’t make much difference to me whether I was trimmed for the picture, b