42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

I feel like I’ve peeled back the layers of myself, gone back to a different time, a different person.

I recently finished the process of cleaning my closet, finally going through loads of stuff I should’ve thrown out a couple of moves ago.
I was learning the process of letting go.

Some of my stuffed animals, gone. But they were ones I wasn’t that attached to. 30, with stuffed animals, yes. But the keepers all mean a lot to me. And no, they don’t sit on my bed like a teenager’s.

I weeded out two bags worth of clothes. Mostly items I just don’t like any more, or never liked, but wore anyway. Or items I can’t fit into any more, though I plan to. I decided anything I could wear 10 years ago, but can’t wear now, I don’t want to wear later. Time to let go. I got rid of a tatty old oversized yellow sweater, my indestructible comfort sweater. I haven’t worn it since I moved to Fresno, and reluctantly let it go. My great-grandfather’s old cardigan made it into the donation pile, but I was convinced to bring it back out. It’s only one sweater. 

I went through tons of old newspaper clippings, going back to my college newspaper and my work at my first daily newspaper. I couldn’t read them. The thought of it made me cringe. I weeded out a lot of stuff. Street talk. Wild art from the day when that meant a grip and grin. Consolidated two boxes worth of clippings, my life as a journalist from 18 to 30, into a single box.

It amazed me how I still remember some of my favorite stories. Remembered shooting some of my favorite pictures. The stories that made an impression on me reminded how rewarding writing could be. Writing feature stories, anyway. I never liked writing hard news or meeting stories. I never had time to really dig into some of that news. No, I just liked being able to sit down with someone, and figure out what made them so special, so different.

I always went to a story with the idea of no matter how boring a person said they were, they were always interesting to me. I could always make it a story.

I liked the small-town appreciation, the sense of being someone special in someplace special, making other people feel special. I kept a file of thank you notes in my desk, and a handful of the nasty notes as well. I weeded out some of the thank you notes, but kept a few, and kept one nasty note too, because it was funnily illiterate.

I don’t like my memories of working long hours, of not being appreciated by my communities or elsewhere. For every person who thinks you’re doing a good job, there are at least two who think you aren’t. And they wonder why you can’t do as good a job as the larger paper in the region (the paper I would later defect to.)

I just got tired.
For some people, reporting is all they want to do. I have fond memories, but looking back at those clippings reminded me again, I never want to be a reporter again.

So I’m now I’m a designer and a copy editor, and I don’t know what the future holds. I may look back at my design clips someday in similar fear and fondness, but file it away as another part of my life, now gone.
Or I could be doing this years from now. Who knows?

I also found old cards, birthdays and Christmas, and a few going-away cards in between. It was eerie to see the handwriting of so many people who are gone from my life. Well, maybe not gone from my heart, my memories, but gone.

Found:
An eerie thank you note from my recently deceased Grandma W. It made me cry. She was telling me about all the flowers they had planted. And even the most simple cards, just wishing me a happy birthday, without any notes, made me sad. I couldn’t part with them, for now.

A note from my long-gone Great-Grandma M., thanking me for staying with her while recovering from surgery. We had a lot of conflict, but I remember our time together fondly. And she came as close as she ever did to apologizing in that letter.

Cards from my Grandpa and Grandma B. Grandpa B. just died in February, and I hadn’t really known him for many years. Grandma B. died long ago and I never missed her in the way I missed Great-Grandpa or Grandma M., her parents, or more recently, Grandma W. I was pretty young when she died, and she was a hard woman to get close to. My mother had a better relationship with her grandmother, Grandma M., than she did with her own mother.

Photos of Grandma and Grandpa M. and their dog, Raina. How I loved that dog. The only dog I’ve been able to love. And I never got a chance to really say goodbye to Raina, because Grandma gave orders for the dog to be put to sleep when she died.

I remember loving Grandpa M. so much when I was a child, but my tricky memories tell me little of why. I just have a few vague impressions of him now. Of him calling his own daughter Grandma Mickey Moose, of him lighting a fire in the fireplace that is now my father’s. Of his white t-shirts. Of the time I saw his shirtless back, covered in freckles. Though I never saw him with other than a few whisps of white hair, his nickname used to be Red.

I found pictures of my mother, also long gone. I often worry whether I’m forgetting her more and more. I lose her voice a little more every year, and the way that she smelled. It wasn’t that long ago and yet a lifetime.

I think sometimes our memories are useful, weeding out all the mundane bits, making room for new memories. But I wish I could recall my mother better. And when I dream about her, she’s always in the distance, or always fighting. I can never see or reconnect with her in my dreams.

My life is so much different. I’ve enjoyed the process of maturing, growing into a different being like a caterpillar into a butterfly. But some of me wishes I could still be a caterpillar. I wish I could be 4 years old again. All of my loved ones are still alive, and I’m young enough that my only worry is a baby brother taking attention. No school, no work, no bills. Just love. Unconditional. My family still seems to be happy, without all the conflict that will follow. My mother is still beautiful, younger than I am now, and carefree, with long, brown hair and a shy smile captured on film that says she doesn’t really like having her picture taken.  

Crap. I meant for this to be an upbeat entry, and it got me morose and contemplative.

I guess that’s what you do when you reorganize a closet, and finally shuffle through old pictures and cards and clothes. Make more room for the new, and just remember, as best as you can, the old.