In the Arms of Love

As you have seen, I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring comes from within. — Eudora Welty

***

When I taught memoir writing, the students often found that old family photos were at least as important as letters, journals and other written documents. Recently, I stumbled upon this one of my mother holding me on my first birthday back in 1948.

I love the car in the background and the long row of houses there in the post-war suburb outside of Detroit. It helps locate me in time and place and literally screams “far away and long ago.”

This photo is one of many in an old black photo album with crumbling pages. The tape holding the photos to the paper has worn off in many cases, leaving the images in free-fall.

Other photos in the album show my father, sisters, friends, relatives and a classic of my Scottish grandparents in front of their camping trailer.

I could try as a writer to describe that era, which I do not remember, but it would be difficult to capture much of it with more than a smidgeon of the richness these simple images convey.

This was the essence of what I was trying to express in my recent essay, “Seeing.” These many years later, it is as if I am the one holding a camera that can see backward through time and space to the emptiness before memory. Back to just after my story began but before memories formed.

Back to my origin in the arms of love.

Thanks to my friend Kenneth Schmidt for the Welty quote and other insights.

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