Life/Paper

Slow day at work. The end of my shift found me cleaning out shelves and desk drawers of accumulated trinkets, pill boxes, paper clipping devices, etc, ect, etcetera.

One of the more interesting things I cleared was a folder from the newspaper's photo morgue (which long ago lost some of its most valuable files, like the Bill Mazeroski folder, to late night thievery).

Can't remember why I had pulled this file; all I can say is that every time I venture into those dusty stacks, I get sidetracked by one life in a folder or another. Also, there is sneezing. Lots of sneezing.

The envelope labels often read like this:
Mrs. Jones: Accused of killing husband with hacksaw
xxxxtown: Fire kills 3 people and 8 horses
Gertrude Michael: Actress

The photo files (the older ones are bigger and clearly were labeled with a Courier font typewriter) document all kinds of crime, tragedy and daily life in general from the early 20th Century through about the mid 90s, when digital photography killed off dark rooms and developed film.

The file still sitting on my desk was full of images of a forgotten actress named Gertrude Michael, from Talladega, Ala., whose flame burned out fairly quickly. She died at 53. Can't remember what I was looking for when I stumbled across her. She's back in her dusty spot now in the morgue, a life compressed to a stack of faded images. (Side note: When I was a tween in the late 60s, I spent a week in Talladega with my cousin Kim and her sister and sister's husband in Talladega. Jim was an ob-gyn. I remember a beautiful lakefront A-frame, watching "Let's Make a Deal" and a country club visit that included some sort of sweet cocktail that bartenders hate to make. There was moonshine, too. Payment for Jim's services from the local folks. Miss Michael came from an interesting place.)

The picture is of a pop-up kind of life. And look, there's a paper, too! From a temporary storefront art installation on 6th Street, Downtown, called Fraley's Robot Repair. I'm a big fan.

Memory & narrative

This is 2012 and I have a personal trainer at the gym. Twice a week for 30-minute sessions. Thursday was our get-acquainted session. Liz is a nice young woman and good in the enthusiasm/cheery/friendly mode.

While I warmed up on the treadmill, she asked me about me, my interests, etc. Kind of like the dentist asking same while you have a mouthful of gauze. I talked, jobbed and puffed, watched by Liz's very bright blue eyes.

I love to take walks, that was one of my interests for Liz. I got to explaining how Dad's mom would drag/march/accompany us kids all over D.C. when we were little. Not for the purpose of dragging or marching, but for pleasure and enrichment. Gram loved D.C. and she loved exposing her grand-kids to its treasures.

So few of the memories Grandma and Washington remain with me in full. So many years later, they are impressions.

A Marine band concert on a summer night.
The fountain of Mercury at the National Gallery.
The heart tree at the Library of Congress (we called it that because it had a scar in a heart shape).
The furniture at Gram's apartment at 215 C Street; the ladderback, cane-seat chairs from (I think) Aunt Clara's house in St. Louis. The heavy jar of change she kept in a bureau drawer, which she brought out for us to count on every visit.

Such tiny fragments. I don't remember Gram's love, or attention, but I hang on to those fragments so I can keep telling that story; a story that has helped build who I am. Someday the story may become part of Brynne and Henry and Louis and Graham, and it will get distilled and changed again.

Another memory, prompted by my evening ritual of braiding my hair:

My mother's mother, in her 70s and 80s, with a thick grey coil of braid wrapped around her head. Watching her plait it, the coil pulled around front to her chest it was so long. I thought it was beautiful and I loved that she tied it off with a strand pulled from her brush, wrapped tightly around the end of the plait.

After GrandDad died, she cut it off, Mom says. It was too much to take care of. I don't remember that at all.

Carl & I went to "Laugh Out Loud" by the Second City comedy group Friday night. (Wow, the improv was impressive and funny! I cannot imagine thinking that fast on my feet.)

We had a nice dinner, went to the show and chatted briefly with friends afterwards. It was really a lovely evening; a date, something, like traveling, we have gotten away from in recent years.

On the way back to the car, I took this shot of a pop-up art installation on 6th Street. Fraley's Robot Repair.