MEMORY

It was the beginning that I would only see in hindsight, backwards in time, after learning again and again that such mercy exists—exists, secretly in concrete streets...

I was fascinated by the Amish and the picture I took, with my eyes, and all my senses, the clop clopping of the horses, their smell...

Loving the campers was the given. We were in sync. I wasn’t, after all, that much older than they were. I could have passed for one of them, had I worn a camp uniform...

In her 57th post, Helena grapples first with this column’s deadline, then with a transformative experience of both grief and love.

[I began] opening the images I carried with me to find the experience, the meaning, the feeling, the story...As I wrote them, they became...the story of my first-generation American family...

My older sister, Jolene, was the ringleader in our sister group. It was a group of only us two...We were an organism. Where did she stop and I begin? I can't find a fixed edge...

I think the eyes open when one writes, just as they do when one paints, to a more subtle, finely-tuned world. I’ve just looked up from my notebook. The snow on the hemlock trees past my window makes a fine, latticework pattern. I didn’t see that before I started this writing. It’s a glimpse, a vision of bright order. Outer to inner eyes. I think I’ve gasped...