I wrote this a couple of months ago, when time and life and circumstances came crashing down one day. Figured a sleepy Saturday would be a good time to post it here. One can always do with a reminder.
I’ll get to the political stuff, I promise. Just not today. I’ll take keyboard in hand and slice and dice right wing tropes and memes into confetti. I’ll chatter on about Social Security, Iraq, Iran – will we or wont we?, sex, lies and Gannongate, and the crooks and liars of the right. Just not today. They’ll all still be there tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that. Isn’t there some saying, “and the freaks will be with you always”?
The good, now… well, sometimes they die young.
<there’s more>
When my brother died a few years ago I found a to-do list in his wallet, on a tiny piece of paper, and the first or second item was: Call Louise. I don’t know why, but I must have put the list in my purse or pocket, because I somehow wound up taking it home with me.
I’ve moved a couple of times since then, but that little list always goes with me. I don’t keep it in any special place, or anything. I’ll be tidying up the house and see a small scrap of paper on the floor, or on top of the dresser, or in my purse or… well, just about anyplace. Naturally, I pick it up and while it may sometimes be a receipt, or a just a stray piece of nothing, sometimes it’s the to-do list. I’ll open it, read it, and then set it back down on the table, or in a drawer. I don’t know why I don’t just throw it out. I would say that it’s because it’s in his own writing, and I want to keep that, but I have other things he’s written out by hand, entire stories even.
I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore why I keep the list. I don’t know who Louise is, although I hope he did call her and didn’t wait. But now, the list has become my little talisman… and Louise? We’ll, she’s become everyone that is close to me, and everything I need to get done. I only find the list every few months or so, and when I do and see `call Louise” I make sure to set aside a time to to give my old mom a little extra attention, and to call my other brothers, my daughter and other family and friends.
The good old Fabric of Life is full of those little tendrils that weave in and out of your existence, some leaving little impression, others becoming a treasured part. And sometimes one breaks off and floats away, leaving a huge hole in the fabric, before you are ready for it to go. If you ever are.
I don’t know how to end this. I guess I’ll just say… when it’s time to call Louise, don’t put it off. Everything else will still be there tomorrow.
.
A wonderful story, and you are so right.
Lovely to share your brother’s thoughts, and thank you for diary.
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
So it is :). Thank you, and you’re welcome.
This reminded my of a story I heard about a fairly famous novelist.
I can’t remember his name right now, and googling didn’t help me.
The story as I remember it (probably wrongly in several non-essential respects):
The novelist (not yet a novelist) walked into a restaurant near the University of Chicago campus and found a list in the booth, or on the table he was given. He kept the list and used one item off of it to be the first line in his first novel.
He started all his subsequent books using a single item from the list as the first sentence of his novel.
And after 30 years I think he had finished off the list.
Who is this man, and why can’t I remember his name?
I have no idea, but I hope if you remember the name, you tell. That would be so interesting to track… I wonder what sort of list it was? LOL, next time my list appears (it’s back in hiding now) I might try that.
Dang, now you’ve got me curious though, so I’m going to have to figure out how to make google cough up the information.
First of all, I got the name John Updike in my head and I am almost certain it is not him. Then Philip Roth, but I don’t think it’s him either.
And all my creative googling attempts failed to turn up anything but a gazillion novels that have ‘list’ ‘found’ ‘chicago’ and ‘restaurant’ in them.
Looks like you were right, it’s Philip Roth. At least, it looks like it from this article or story or whatever it is. 19 Sentences.
Although this is more talking about lawsuits or something regarding the sentences (bunch of people say they are the ones that left them there).. there are probably more interesting articles about his method, lol.
(I googled “first sentence of novels from list”)
When Google fails, open-source succeeds. Way to go Nanette.
It’s a fun story, no?
lol, yes, a very fun story. And fun tracking it down too… thanks for the hunt.
And this is why I love this site Booman. Other people like me who have various odd trivia in their heads and someone else taking them seriously enough to track down the info…just because..lovely.
And thanks Nanette for finding the author…otherwise I would have spent the rest of day wondering who the hell that author was and I have other things I have to get done this afternoon.
Thanks for a giving me something to read today that didn’t piss me off. And a lovely reminder also to not put things off when it’s so easy to just do it.
and the wonderful story! 🙂
The older we get, the more Louises we have to call, until eventually the lists wraps round the globe several times and includes multiple generations of Louises, and even in this modern age of email we are sadly reduced to including a shout-out to all our “peeps” in Kawkaban as a footnote to a hurried note to one of Louise’s great-nephews, when everyone we know in Kawkaban deserves their very own personal missive.
Then the next thing we know, someone tells us that Louise’s brother’s cousin’s wife’s sister, who was so nice to us that time in that little town we can’t remember the name of, during one of those wars, but we can’t quite place which one of those either, but we do remember the sister lending us books, making us tea, and putting her best linen on the bed in her spare room for us, and now, we hear, she has died, and we let all those years pass without so much as sending her a postcard.
For those of us who are over, um, 25, or as the young folks say, “old school,” it is not likely that we will be able to hit them all, but we can take a minute and remember somebody who did us a kindness, and whom we have abandoned, and even if we can’t think of anything to say, send them one of those horrid little cards with ridiculous cartoon owls and things that says “Thinking of You,” and sign it “Love” because no matter how much you write or don’t, that is all you mean to say anyway.