Thursday, September 17, 2009

a jumbled post: a product of one AM

it is always late at night when i should be resting my body & restoring my mind that a stream of creativity & productivity flows over me, making me want to stay up all night painting, rearranging, contemplating, inventing, generating, planning, 
revolutionizing.

i've been spending time developing, printing, & lovinglovingloving being in the darkroom. 
since the age of 12 when i began taking photos i've dreamt of someday watching them come to live in a darkroom, from the work of my own hands. 
& it's finally happening, & i'm thrilled to see where it will take me.

as it is september, i have been thinking a lot about my late poppy, whose bright baby blues have not glanced my way for far too long. Though it's tough, it's a longing that i feel makes me a stronger person. i look back & miss all that used to be, but i know everything happens for a reason, & someday i might come to understand why his life was cut short.
for now, i'll go on missing him, & living happily as i know he'd want me to.

understandably, the mention of my grandfather gives me a nostalgic feeling of my childhood. which i find myself missing all the time. i certainly had a fun up-bringing--young, beautiful parents, jamming out to the smashing pumpkins in my dad's best friends garage at the age of four, dancing to madonna with my mom & sister, eating PB&J's late at night with my daddyo, & going on all day bike adventures with my sister only to return at dusk to climb in bed & dream of floating on clouds.
do you ever miss the feeling of everything being a mystery, as it is when you're a child?

nicholas' mom mentioned to me months ago that i should always practice recalling events from my past, that when i lie in bed at night unable to sleep, i should pick a year in my life & try to remember as much from it as i can. for, she says, you'll forget it all eventually if you don't make yourself recall it. 
what wonderful advice this was. 
i often find myself trying to delve into my deepest memories & the emotions of my past & transfer them to paper, for when i'm 60, i want to be able to look back & remember the times i picked blackberries in my grandma's backyard with my billion cousins & ate most of them before we could walk the bowl into the house to have grandma bake a pie. even now, at nearly 20, it's hard to remember your life at seven years old.
let us always remember the days of mystery.


(myself & my sister with our soxy, who lived for fifteen years & whom i miss all the time.)


5 comments:

Natalie Freeman said...

oh, tori. i love you. i, too, miss childhood. by being married, i sometimes feel like my childhood is permanently gone because i'm an "adult."
but- we can seek life & all of its mysteries in our 20s, 30s, & 100s.

love you, best friend! i've really really really missed you lately :/

Kelsey W. said...

When I was little, I used to get really terrible nightmares, and my mom gave me the same advice as Nick's gave you. It's a great way of thinking. Also, I'm so excited we're blog friends now!

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed reading your blog this evening. You are a treasure. Hope you realize it. Granny

Keeper of the Skies Wife said...

You always seem to make me cry love!

I was on facebook yesterday and saw Grandma had posted a picture of one of my childhood homes on Middle Island. Memories came flooding back when I saw the picture. Although the photo was taken a hundred years before I lived there...it looked exactly like my minds eye remembered it! I had my first kiss in that front yard, watching gma wring the chickens necks for that nights dinner...the sugar cane fields in the back and remembering the taste of them. I remember Pops coming home and picking me up and swinging me around....he had on his painters clothes (that memory I remembered late last night as I laid in bed thinking about that house)
loves

Jess said...

what a sweet photo of you and your sis.
I know exactly what you're feeling - I've been feeling it too. it always hits me in September, b/c that's the month my dad died. I've actually been going through the same process, feeling nostalgic and trying to remember my memories, so that they don't fade away.

thanks for wording this feeling so eloquently.