Wishing You Were Here - a postcard travelogue
The light inside the attic is scant - only slim shafts of dusty sunlight are permitted to enter through small holes in the the walls that have been punctured over time. The world is quiet here. It's a place where one can go and entertain memories of the past with the clarity of the present. The small squat and rectangular cedar box is where she'd said she'd hidden it right before she passed away so many years ago. I feel a strange sense of elated guilt as I lift the heavy lid, hands shaking, to reveal secrets as old and fleeting as the passions that felt compelled to put pen to paper and chronicle the details of this small, yet substantial, slice of life. Five worn and well-loved postcards are ceremoniously wrapped in a scrap of yellowed lace. Reverently, I untie the knot and dive in, drinking each word. I listen with all of my heart - as if she were here herself, sitting cross-legged on the worn floor next to me, telling me her ribald tale. Bit by bit, small and tantalizing snapshots reveal not the proper woman that I thought I knew, but a wild and adventurous angel full of grace and ardor that did not yield to the conventions dictated by her time. I held in my hands the record of a woman coming of age on her own terms - a rare gem indeed.
A sharp realization wilts me on the spot: she is gone and the world of her memories is gone with her. The permanence of her death is wrought by the silence of her life story. I contemplate, grieving for a moment - who will remember? Quickly, an idea sets my mind alight and the melancholy fades away like a morning fog. Could the solution be that simple? Could it be that perhaps, through my indulgence, a part of her and her world can live on through me and the retelling of her story?
I clutch the box to my chest and descend the stairs into the warmth and light of the hallway with a new resolve: to share her story, her words, her memory, her vibrant spirit, her secrets..
Five postcards, five scents reveal the tale of one woman.
