Rewrite

Leave it to Paul Simon to come up with the great lyrics of his song "Rewrite".  From the first time I heard it I loved it. 

I've been working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I'm spending
It's just for working on my rewrite
Gonna turn it into cash

I've been working at the carwash
I consider it my day job
Cause it's really not a pay job
But that's where I am
Everybody says the old guy working at the carwash
Hasn't got a brain cell left since Vietnam

But I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I'd no idea
That you were there
When I said help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer

I'm working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I'm spending
Is just for working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna turn it into cash

I'll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm
Gonna substitute a car chase
And a race across the rooftops
When the father saves the children
And he holds them in his arms

And I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I'd no idea
That you were there
When I said, help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer

My head has been leaking in or is it out, the need to write deeper.  With the past many months when I have felt devoid of words that I want to express I think it is starting to emerge.  Like a bulb in the ground the thoughts are pushing out to receive the light, to grow, to open.

That story I want to tell that maybe I will begin to write, not for the blogging, but that story that I think can be worth telling.  We all have stories within us.  Storytelling once was a way to pass the evening after supper along time ago.  A time to pass on family stories or of a childhood long gone to the young ones who would sit in rapt attention.  Maybe a story was told that would be well remembered and laughed at or one that the listeners would pause in thought to think they were glad that never happened.

In doing the genealogy I have found descriptions that made me wish I could be told the story of their lives.  The family members, husband and wife, who died in a tornado.  Those who died in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, those who came from Ireland to America.  I guess that is why I write to leave my trail for any beyond my lifetime who happened to find me as they do their own genealogy on the family.  

My Love has asked who in our family will be interested?  All the time I put in to researching, who will look at this?  All the time I've put into my photo organizing, uploading, storing, documenting, creating, making archive copies on DVD's or CD's.  What will become of it all?  I don't know.  I don't want to think it will all disappear without meaning to someone.

There's that story I want to write of my mom that only gets more fascinating as I put the puzzle pieces of her life together.  The few stories she told of her life as a child and now I find some of them to be fictitious.  Was it because she was too young to know the real story and filled in her life with what she wanted it to be?  We all tend to embellish stories we tell for the listener if we say it enough.  I want to write that story of hers that sits beside me as I correspond with a cousin of hers.  She is young and her mind clear to tell me what she knew and what she is trying to find out for me.  

I dug into a place I maybe shouldn't have but like me I did.  It was casual in my brother saying that our stepfather Bill was still alive.  What?!  Mom always told me he was dead!  Just like her to say that so I wouldn't at some point go looking where maybe she thought I shouldn't.  My brother innocent in telling me this only peaked my curiosity.  He even lives within a short drive from me not that I would go visit.  I did think to drive by but didn't.  The internet is different.  I found his email address and I wrote him.  I've been disappointed in that he hasn't tried to do the one favor I asked of him, to tell me of my mom and his breakup.  I never was given a reason since I was a young teen.  I don't know why my thoughts to know this are so strong I just wanted to understand why to fill in the pieces of the puzzle that didn't fit.  This man who was so good to my brother that he changed his birth name to his stepfather's name.  One doesn't ask, do or other lightly.  How does this man just drop off the face of the earth once he moved out?  I realize that he is now 80 something and maybe after the 40 some odd years have past, we too are merely a distant memory or lost.  I don't know.  He and I corresponded three times.  He shed no light though he said he would.  The last time I wrote him I told him I would not bother him again if I did not receive any emails back.  He must not want to tell his side.  The door closed.  The story gone.

Like Paul wrote...I'm working on my rewrite...that's right.