Asking For A Friend

What's your first memory?

The very particular green of New England summer.
There it is.
That hasn’t changed.

But this green - so many greens really -
A crowd of greens?
Feels unexpectedly
Like home.

I always head east
To see family and friends.
Then I land.
And the green.
Oh right.
Every time.

But it hits different this year.
Though at first
I’m not sure how.

---

Do you want to see Elton Street
My Dad asks.
Meaning the two homes
Of my early childhood.

We’re on our way
To meet the cousins for dinner.
I’m in the back passenger window
Mitch in the bigger front seat.
My head tilts awkwardly
Towards the window and up.
What’s worth kinking your neck for?
This.

We’re headed to a restaurant dinner
But I’m already eating my greens.
With my green eyes.
Like attracts like.
As they say.

Do you want to see Elton Street?
Yes but I also want
To minimize Dad’s 93 year old driving.
And I mostly want
To keep watching leaves
Dance in the drizzle.

No, that’s ok.

But Mitch pipes in with a yes.
I’ve already shown it to him.
At least once.
But he knows me.
And how much I like to see
The places where I’ve lived.
Places where he’s lived.
The Homes.
It’s so me.
My name - Beth - means house.
(In Hebrew)
(I even see parentheses as homes)
It’s how I understand the world.
Words.
Homes for meaning.

So, yeah.
You’re right.
Let’s see it.

We turn off Blackstone.
It’s right here
Dad says.

As we approach
My First Memory
Takes center stage.
It’s always there
Waiting in the wings
With the other big stars
Of the story line.

I watch it - as we do all memories
From the inside
And the outside
At the same time.
Plus today’s picture
Washing over it.
What a show.

I see Dad carrying me
From one of these Elton Street houses to the other.
The sidewalk chevron patterned brick.
Only right now
Do I realize
This memory may actually account for
My love of chevron patterning.
With all that movement!
As the gushy designers
On home improvement shows
(My guilty pleasure)
So often squeal.

I’m on Dad’s shoulders.
As we bounce
From the apartment building to the new place.
And I’m wondering why?
Obv I had no clue about
Moving from
Renting
Or pa/renting - wow never noticed that before -
To owning.
No clue about needing more room
For second children.

So I’m wondering why.
Was it the first time I had?
Maybe.
Maybe being in
This liminal space
Had released it.

Does why need
That in between
To exist?
Is that the whole real reason for travel?
The destination and route
Both moot points.
It’s just being away.
So why can find its way home to you.

I’m perched
On my Dad’s plaid shirted shoulders.
As I launch this why.
I watch it rocket
Into the blue sky.
Where even now
It still orbits.
I can’t will it to appear.
Though sometimes it does.
Like a planet.
But when I move around
It seems to find me more.
But I prefer to stay home.
A homebody.
Good thing I found a traveler.
Mitch lights up with the thought of going.
To me going is leaving.
Running away.
And lately I’ve stopped telling myself
I can just leave.
Maybe that’s made travel more appealing.
And somehow made it possible to believe
That sometimes
Everywhere you go
There you aren’t.

Why?
Even then
I think I knew
I’m not really asking about moving.
Although even then
I think I knew
It could be about moving
And not about moving
At the same time.

---

When did you unlock your first memory?
Me?
Late bloomer that way.

I was between homes myself.
On the chevron sidewalk of life.
I was nested into
The Murphy bed
In my parents’ office.
They’d moved to the desert
To be near me.
And away from
My mother’s mother
And handful of years ago.
But I’d moved away.
Those reasons are a story for another day.

So many reasons to move.
Even that Murphy bed.
Moved out and back up..
Invisible.
And then seen.

And in the quiet night
I was just trying to avoid the haunting questions
Why
(sometimes it does find you at a home
especially when the lights are all out)
And her bedeviling companions
Why not
How come
What if.
So I was doing some online work.
I was taking the concrete available steps.
Setting up a Tumblr - to be specific and ridiculous.
And it asked about my first memory.
And there it was.
So thank you Tumblr.
You never know where help will come from.

---

My Dad slows the Corolla to a stop
At the duplex.
I pushbutton the window down
To get a better view.
A better shot.
One without the trash cans.

There it is.
142 Elton.
I could have sworn we lived in the left side.
140.
But no.
The right.
Or so my dad swears.

That tree didn’t used to be there
He says.
Such a tiny change.
Though not for the tree.

We roll on to.
The Apartment Building.
I have no more memory of it
Than I do of the womb.
Also no less.
The way a fetal position at night
Feels familiar.
I have a sense in every kitchen
Of that kitchen.

We veer off Elton
Which turns out to mean the old town.
Literally.
And it is.
For better or for worse.
The green I long for
Without ever clocking.
The college years.
That girl.
With her further questions still forming.
In Providence.

Providence.
Means literally
Under the guidance and care of g_d.
Of the divine.
And in a sense
Living in accordance with a divine plan -
A destiny.
Means you have to suss out
The mystery map.
The treasure hunt.
What is my destiny?

Of all the ways our destiny shows its face:
Our names.
Our numbers.
Our stars.
Our looks…
It might be that
Our first memories
Are the least counted
And the most reliable.

---

It wasn’t until lately
In this city of angels
Where I live now
That I came to understand
I had maybe
Thrown my first question
Away.
Into the sky.
Wanting answers instead.

It wasn’t until lately
In this city with so much sky
That I decided to try
To love the question.
Hold it in my heart.

I started thinking of myself
As a recovering
Know it all.

And then
There it is.
The very particularly green
Alive Green would be the Crayola name.
That somehow seems to see me
While it is being seen.
That very particular green.
The question.
The answer.
My why.

Infinitely Yours,
Beth

PROGRAM NOTES

The Assignment
Take a look - write/talk/take notes - at your first memory.
How does it map into your story?
Your understanding?
Your beingness?
Your work?

This is part of the 8 Habits of Infinitely Creative People.
Know Yourself falls at the end of the sequence.

Every time you come to a new understanding it sends you right back to the beginning….Decide.

And to help you decide…

We have a Pick Your Next Project Zoom Bootcamp on Saturday Oct 19.
Fall is the best time for these kinds of decisions.

It’s ridiculously cheap $20,24 becuase I love it as a way to get to meet new creatives who might want to join the Infinite Creator community. But it;s not free because I’m interested in folks who are willing to invest at least a tiny bit in their creative success;)