You have to go back to go forward

Somehow I ended up reading the perfect book for where I find myself right now.  Val, a friend from college and a kindred soul when it comes to book affinities recommended Katherine Reay's books.  I ended up reading "Dear Mr. Knightley" first and, a mostly light-hearted read, I thought it was lovely.

When I opened "The Bronte Plot" and expected much the same thing...I have been startled by the heavy-ness and truth there.  It's where I need to be.

One of the main characters, an 85-year-old woman named Helen, keeps talking about how she needs to "Go back to move forward," visiting places from her past to be okay with what comes next in her life.

One section where she talks about her life hit me especially hard:
  I'm working on my choices.  There are things I have to lay down and others I need to embrace.  Right choices that are good--they hit your heart.  We are wired to know what they are and they make us solid.  We can stand on them.  And that's what I want, Lucy.  I want to stand firm.  I want my family to know me, and I'm not sure they really do.  I was so bold and daring and then somewhere along the way, I shrank.  I became frightened, and I hid behind rules and manners and other things that weren't true." ( The Bronte Plot, pp. 151). 

Going back to go forward....When people ask about my family roots, well, I talk a lot about how I moved around as a kid.  It's not untrue--born in London, England, spent a few years in Oklahoma and then my formative years (K-5th grade) in Toronto, Canada until my dad took a job as a professor in Illinois.

But those aren't "roots," really--are they?  I like to pass myself off as British and Canadian first (I love you peaceable, measured folk), but the core of who I am through the generations of the Hartleys and Davis clan is more midwestern and southern in sensibility.  We are somewhat emotional people--and most importantly, drawn to good storytelling with heart and a bit of heat.

But somewhere along the lines, that girl who took "Oral Interpretation" in college and got up on stage in musicals and poured her soul out through acting and singing?  She shrank.  My kids have never heard me sing outside of things like VBS or in church or at home.

I realized today as I read those lines that I'd started hiding somewhere along the lines--I told stories while I was a youth leader, in charge of kid-friendly worship and I really, truly miss that part of the job. I MISS telling stories and sharing songs and in the midst of watching my grandpa pass and drift away from afar, I'm ANXIOUS to get HOME to Arkansas.  I never thought I'd feel that way--drawn to the south, wanting to listen again to the family stories I hear there--even with Granny gone, what? 13 years now? My grandpa's mom's stories and the home she made and the family she drew us into somehow feels present in my memory long after she's been physically gone.  I want to see my second cousins and hopefully my cousins and my aunts and uncles and to sing those songs we know so well (church songs and silly songs my grandpa taught us)...

and those stories!  Stories I never lived but could probably tell after hearing them so many times---Granny smashing the moonshine jars, but telling Great Grandpa "It musta been a bad batch-they plum exploded!" and Grandma and the switch tree outside of church where my father, as a sort of rascally sort while young, would pick out a branch for her to use on his backside when he couldn't quite sit still through the service.  And the ones I DID live--Grandpa teaching me to play dominoes (I'm not sure I still understand that well, but it was a good excuse to play with him and granny, killing some time until we could open presents at Christmas), and hearing the Christmas story in his tenor voice.  Having Grandma and Paw Paw whisper in my ear about the goody drawer and where to find the Little Debbie snack cakes if we didn't see our favorites in the drawer (and this is where the rumors of "Debbie in the closet" began). Getting to know my way around Grandma and Paw-Paw's church well and touring the hospital where Grandpa was an administrator--usually in clothes that matched with whichever of my cousins were there with me.  And the trip to "Myrtle Beach!"

You have to go back to go forward--embrace those memories, good and sometimes not so good (hey, I wasn't the most emotionally stable teenager when my grandparents had me stay with them the summer before the move to Greenville.  I'm not proud of who I was, but they loved me through that) and let go of other things--like not being able to record Grandpa on video the summer of 2012 when I'd hoped and found that those lifetime memories had already left him. I have to let go of the regret that I'd waited until I'd finished my dissertation to try and get family stories and in waiting those years/months had missed the opportunity entirely.

And something stirs in me when it comes to storytelling.  My mom mentioned this weekend that "most of the great storytellers (in our family) are gone," but that somehow felt like...I don't know--like an art I was meant to pick up?  Something that had shrunk in me after college and after having kids...that doesn't mean it's gone.  It's something that, if I'm bold I think I can reclaim.  When the time comes to rally around family in Arkansas, I keep hoping that going back will also help pull me forward, and bring that back out in me again.

Stories don't have to be lost forever--but sometimes we have to go back to who we were earlier in our lives to go forward with those pieces again.

I think.  Maybe.  That's just what I'm feeling and thinking as I sort through what has been, what was lost and I want to reclaim, and hopefully what can be.