The Persistence of Memory

sun-drenched morning, rays coming through the pines to meet you, after a string of dreary, cloudy days is an answer to a prayer. But not the kind of half-hearted, guilt-ridden prayer you sometimes say for yourself. A prayer for sun, a prayer for rain, if I'm worthy. One, instead, that is prayed for you, by someone who knows you better than yourself. "And don't forget the hot coffee with cream," that person must have said for me...

...and let's talk about Christmas presents, shall we? A new zoom lens for my digital camera was among my favorites, as well as an embossing gun and all the little jars of embossing powders to go with it. (The latter of which I'm practicing-making-perfect--I'm still a little bit sloppy with it, but I'll get the process down eventually.) I think my biggest gift, in breadth, in width, and depth was a trip to west Texas where my mother grew up and my grandmother still lives. In my journal while there, I commented that the place was such a shock to my system that it was apparent that my mother had indeed "pulled my roots out clean and whole" when she left there. I harbor very few memories of returning with her while she was alive, while my siblings have memories of entire childhoods there. My sister took me to the sites of their old haunts--the Sky-Vue drive-in with their famous "Chihuahau sandwiches" and a sacred playground where she remembers playing two decades ago; Spurlock's, where my mother worked as a teenager, heaving trays of corn dogs and twice-fried potatoes to hungry Texans; the town square and graffiti-laden wall where my mother met her friends and beaus, cruising around and around on Saturday nights amid youthful cries of "Take it to the wall!" ; and the west Texas highway itself, persistent and urgent with its own story, life, memory, flanked on both sides with flatness and oil fields, and seeming to go on forever into oblivion both forward and backward, your choice.