Moving Forward
A lesson in memories
Nora Mcinerny of #hotyoungwidowsclub says we don’t move on just forward. In the past several months forward moementum has meant finishing projects such as The Afterthought: a generational memoir that, in writing, helped me to discover my parents in a new light. It has also meant regaining firm ground as a writer, coach, and workshop leader. Then there is figuring out how many of John’s “things” to keep close since I can’t have his physical presence near.
I wrote what feels like a nearly complete essay on my first time back at a newly remodeled Playhouse in the Park on my phone in the darkened theater Saturday afternoon. (I’m not one of those annoying people who light up their screen during a play, I waited till Intermission). Like my life, parts of the physical building have changed dramatically while some pieces of our life, our need for entertainment, are lodged in a stone wall, a rotating stage, the memories of joy we felt, I felt, in the priveledge to have a life my mother would have killed to live.
She knew only barriers, not freedom. Her life predetermined from childhood, though she had musical talent. Duty-bound to her family, a confining church, and the prison of striving to be good in the eyes of others, superceded any drive in artistic expression. She’d been tagged with the nicknames Tiny Lightning and Black Sheep as a child but grew out of those names only to be haunted my a drive to fit in.
As I sit in the fresh morning darkness preparing for the week ahead, I’m reminded of a scene in the play about Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance. Her character, Hercule Poirot speaks to a grieving Agatha about the need to write so that she can deepen the stories she puts into the world, to enrich them with emotions that serve a broader audience.
A woman sitting next to me in the theatre introduced herself as someone from the arts industry who would interview the character of Miss Marple. She must have noticed my nodding in agreement with Monsieur Poirot as he called for young Agatha to write richer stories.
Eleven years ago, I applied and was accepted into a top-tier Master of Fine Arts program. In the weeks leading up to the start of the semester, a chaotic holiday season and a sense of duty, not unlike that my mother experienced long before me, led to rescinding the offer to study in Vermont. My rational mind had kicked in. Kids in college and no guarantees that I could justify the cost by earning a living as a writer.
In the past few years I learned of a scholars program at public universities in Kentucky for residents over the age of 65 to take classes, enter a field of study, get a masters degree, PhD, all for free. My world changed with John’s death and I have settled into taking care of myself. The dream of an M.F.A. is coming to fruition. I’ve been accepted for the fall semester, 2026 at the University of Kentucky.
During my return to school between 1998 and 2003, I would sit in one kitchen or another, never allowing my children to make excuses regarding homework. If I could do it, so could they.
“Knowledge is power,” I’d say as I poured over Spanish, Plato, Jung, Freud, and all the components of first a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts and then a Masters in Counseling. Perhaps that drive was fueled by the image of my mother, bedraggled and duty-bound to raise 3 kids alone, never able to realize her dream of making music.
I was nine years old when she bought a piano on credit. She said it was so I could learn to play. I guess she didn’t get it after I stole money for dance lessons, that dance, piano playing was her dream, not mine.
But, to watch her light down on the piano bench, her elegant finger hesitating on the ivory before they ran the keys first in a Boogie Woogie and then a haunting rendition of Moonlight Sonata. Not before or after would I witness the light in her eyes as she played.
My compulsion, my desire has been pen to page moments to deepen and enrich my understanding of myself and the world around me.
I am finally coming into my own.