Tears and Fears

As some of you know, I'm recently occupied fitting furniture and household goods from my mother's Ohio home into my cozy California abode. Currently, the challenge is to integrate Mama's seven decades of cookware into my forty. Do I really need two containers of probably defunct baking powder? It takes a few days of having "Mama's box of cocoa" sit on the counter before I can attempt combining it with mine. Sorting silverware is equally difficult. The instinct is to keep Mama's separate, the reality is that no space exists for such a luxury. The forks must all live together in one tray.

And all along, the writer who lives in my mind takes notes. Did you know an adult child, past 60, will wake in the night in fear knowing she's alone and, worse, now the family's eldest? If I ever write fiction about a woman unpacking boxes as I have been, I'll know how some contents can leap out and grab at the throat and heart in an emotional ambush. I'll write in a scene of the unexpected rush of tears, just when the main character thought the crying was over. Yes, "it's all grist for the mill" for writers, but some grist, like love, is tougher than other.

[creativity]

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