Tidy Tidbits: Childhood Memories

CURRENT READING

Hold Still:  A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

I am one of those individuals who was offended by Mann’s photos of her children when they first appeared about twenty years ago.  I felt she had exploited them and that the photos were totally inappropriate for public viewing.  Yet, on the recommendation of a very good friend (another avid reader), I decided to try her memoir.  I’ve been dipping into it slowly and am beginning to have more appreciation for her as a person and some greater understanding of the aims of her work.  Close in age to me, she was a wild child, unconventional, very much a rule breaker, and not someone with whom I would have bonded.  That said, her connectedness to her southern roots (Lexington, Virginia) and her strong passion for this particular geography along with her explanations of her craft are keeping me engaged.   So I will continue with her life’s journey.  Reading this goes along with my strong interest in the art of the memoir.

A Master Plan for Rescue by Janis Cooke Newman

I think that creating a child protagonist who is believable and rings true is a difficult assignment for many fiction writers.  Emma Donoghue did it wonderfully in her novel, Room, and Ms. Newman, a San Francisco based-writer and mother of a son, does it here in this recent novel set in New York City in 1942.  At almost 12 years old, Jack is a dreamy, unpopular kid (regularly bullied) who has an active, even overactive, imagination.  He is captivated by the radio (a Silvertone monstrosity) and the dramas its programs bring into his living room.  On the cusp of adolescence, he is extremely close to, almost worshipful, of his father.  It is this relationship and the growing publicity about the war emphasizing the possibility of enemies among us that drive how Jack plays out his grief over a death in the family.

HOUSE KEY

With retirement, the number of essential keys on my key ring has dwindled.  No more keys for work (three or four), no traditional car key, just a front door key and a mailbox key.  This got me to thinking about the role of certain keys as markers of one’s stage in life.  Certainly, the first significant key I acquired was a house key.  My parents planned and built a new house in the 1960’s and it provided more space for our family of six in an attractive neighborhood.  This key enabled me to come and go alone and reflected both a measure of independence from my parents and my sense of ownership of this house.  I returned home here during college and, after I married, my husband and I, and later our son and his family, visited and stayed in this house at holiday time and in the summer. If no one was home, there was another house key hidden for family members to find, but it was comforting and familiar to have my own.

The key is plain and easy to overlook, very thin gray metal made for a simple non-deadbolt lock, a lock that has remained the same for more than 50 years.  I still have that key on my key ring.  My parents are both gone, the house is empty and up for sale, and the key will not be used again.  But still I have it and I will probably keep it.

Along the way, I’ve had other keys—a series of car keys, but not that many as we tended to keep our cars forever (where forever could be as long as 18 years), and car keys now are fobs; office and file cabinet keys; and several other house keys.  But none, I would say, carries the emotional weight of this unprepossessing little key.  It has become a talisman—a pleasant reminder of the transition to adulthood, a last link to a home full of memories of father, mother, sisters and brother, a connection to a past in a small town.

Header photo:  Orchids at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota (copyright JWFarrington)