Words Appear

If you are familiar with Lynda Barry's book, What It Is, you won't be surprised that I began flipping through the pages for inspiration tonight. 

Page 44 asks, "[what]Where is a story before it becomes words?"

What an intriguing question. Slice of life stories live within our moments, our memories, our thoughts, and dreams. 

By writing them down, I attach words to them.

I could tell of how my eyelids are dropping as we speak. 

I could write of how I have a bag to pack.

I could describe the blur of this screen.

I could remember the stories of walnuts.

And there it is.

On page 44, as I sat here writing those few lines above, I noticed a walnut on the page within the illustrations. Walnuts were a funny and familiar thing to me growing up. If ever we were passing by a walnut tree we might stop and ask if we could collect them. The walnuts would then sit in our cool basement until my parents were ready to boil them. OH the smell! 

See, as a child, my parents were not only teachers, but they were also basket weavers. They made baskets, cradles, and buggies of all kinds. At the time there were not a lot of basket makers at craft shows and the like, so my parents were unique in the sense of a small business renting a table at a fair. Their business was called Country Creations. My job was usually to soak the reed while my parents would weave the baskets for those passing by. 

People were amazed by the craftsmanship of my parents work. 

We had rows and rows of different reed--wide, narrow, cylindrical, flat. My parents made their own walnut dye and once the baskets were finished would seal it with shellac. The whole process was fascinating and quite beautiful. 

There are many stories about the basket weaving time in our life. I may need to share a few more of them this month. I sometimes forget the little moments, memories, and blur of the past. But then, just like that, a story that was living inside a memory is brought forth from a single image. 

Words appear.