Windsong - Properly quoted this time
In the wind I hear a song,
Of those who lived, but now are gone,
Through the drifting wind I hear
Softly whispers in my ear;
Remember me they seem to say,
For through your breath, I live today
~Karen Swaine
quoted from the title page of "WINDSONG: The Ancestry of Evans Stewart & Margaret Mary Brown" by Karen Stewart Swaine
The book itself is actually a genealogical book about my grandfather's family, but it contains a great deal of anecdotal information that was gathered from my relatives. Some of these are stories that have survived through telling and retelling, and now they are written down- even if the ones who loved telling them so much originally are now gone. Others are stories newly told from forgotten documents that, when taken together, form a narrative.
I have a terrible habit of anecdotal repetition and so does my family- through this repetition, there are some stories that we now have memorized, nearly word for word. And it's contagious- get one of us started, and suddenly the room is being filled with stories new, old, and classic exaggeration. Everything in my mind always connects in a beautiful synergy of plots, subplots and metaphors.
My mother and I, we have a fascination with writing these down. Putting them in stone. Collecting these bits of history for some future person as equally given to posterity.
Once upon a time, in my first creative writing class, I wrote a creative non-fiction short story about my family's reunion and paralleled it with growth as a person. I never showed it to my mom. But years later, my mother rescued an editing copy from the burn barrel when I was dumping some old files. I had never thought she would like it, but she did, and it's now packed away somewhere with some of her momentos of me.
My mother and I, we don't talk much about writing. At least, not about OUR writing; but we love to read each other's material, even if we're embarassed at our own talents.
And this is all, of course, to explain why I attempted to quote the above poem at SVFF. ;)
Of those who lived, but now are gone,
Through the drifting wind I hear
Softly whispers in my ear;
Remember me they seem to say,
For through your breath, I live today
~Karen Swaine
quoted from the title page of "WINDSONG: The Ancestry of Evans Stewart & Margaret Mary Brown" by Karen Stewart Swaine
The book itself is actually a genealogical book about my grandfather's family, but it contains a great deal of anecdotal information that was gathered from my relatives. Some of these are stories that have survived through telling and retelling, and now they are written down- even if the ones who loved telling them so much originally are now gone. Others are stories newly told from forgotten documents that, when taken together, form a narrative.
I have a terrible habit of anecdotal repetition and so does my family- through this repetition, there are some stories that we now have memorized, nearly word for word. And it's contagious- get one of us started, and suddenly the room is being filled with stories new, old, and classic exaggeration. Everything in my mind always connects in a beautiful synergy of plots, subplots and metaphors.
My mother and I, we have a fascination with writing these down. Putting them in stone. Collecting these bits of history for some future person as equally given to posterity.
Once upon a time, in my first creative writing class, I wrote a creative non-fiction short story about my family's reunion and paralleled it with growth as a person. I never showed it to my mom. But years later, my mother rescued an editing copy from the burn barrel when I was dumping some old files. I had never thought she would like it, but she did, and it's now packed away somewhere with some of her momentos of me.
My mother and I, we don't talk much about writing. At least, not about OUR writing; but we love to read each other's material, even if we're embarassed at our own talents.
And this is all, of course, to explain why I attempted to quote the above poem at SVFF. ;)
posted by Phinux at 4:33 AM
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