A few favorite instgram photos from Christmas. An unexpected White Christmas and sleepy girls on the drive up. Some how all seem to fit with this theme of silence, and waiting, and listening.
Normally I am ready for the last week of the year to be over. Ready to move on with routine and schedule and life. But something in my heart aches to cling to this in between time. This time of low expectations. The thought of moving forward hurts just a touch to much.
My aunt passed away today. She was my mother's sister and, because of a large age gap between her and my mother, was more like a grandmother to me. The past few months have been about reconnecting for me. Reconnecting with my past, with my families stories, with the women in my family. I have had the beautiful opportunity of "meeting" a cousin on my mother's side through facebook this winter. I was doing research for a story for The Clutch Guide. It has been an unexpected and wonderful experience.
Over Christmas I was sharing a story with my brother and his wife of a Christmas our family spent at the beach. Neither had any recollection of the moment. Laughingly my sister in law said she was glad some one remembered her life. That it was a comfort to know that though she forget things, friends and family remembered moments for her.
I have wondered lately why I write. Why I blog to be more precise. So often it feels like no one is listening/reading. The past few days I have come to realize, that it doesn't matter at all if any one reads this at all. I am a story teller, a memory keeper. It is in my blood to notice the beautiful and to hold on to it for a rainy day. And, in the processes, I have found a new found connection and relation to aunts, cousins, old neighbors, old classmates. It's important to tell our stories. They make us who we are. They bind us together. They keep us alive.
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