Moments That Mattered: Excerpt

 In Moments that Mattered (Page Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-64462-434-0) author Pamela Hull writes stories of ordinary experiences that were passed over or dismissed but in recall hold clues to lifetime behaviors, attitudes and choices.

The span of our lives.

Within each segment are disparate, illustrative stories of routine, everyday occurrences. Insignificant at the time, they eventually proved to be life-altering in forming character, direction and inclination, and with awakened insight, pivotal in coming to a deeper sense of ourselves.

And yet, how often, if ever, do we assess or unravel these small moments, thinking them too trivial for permanent effect?

Reflection may transform our emotional history and make our lives more generous, and purposeful. Let us then consider the people and forces which have determined and shaped our fortunes. And let us find the significant connections that have brought us to this day.

Moments that mattered.

EXCERPT

Time, Here and Gone

Begin as far back as you remember.

Let memory ramble through time, your mind, adrift. Moments that you have not thought of in years will unfold like dreams from another life.

Large, dramatic events rouse first, and easily – an accident, a death. Marriage, childbirth.

But think further. Many are quiet and small, slow to emerge. You wonder why they have come back at all.

These are moments that mattered, the small ones.

Why now awaken that afternoon when your father took you fishing or you befriended a blind boy. When you stole a lipstick or lied to your mother. Or that one pure moment of perfect happiness when your lost puppy ran through the door, looking for you.

Because any of these moments are more than what they appeared. And might have significantly altered your life in ways you never considered at the time.

A child sees what is before it in simple colors and straight sights. Yet its impressions are fiercly rooted. More wisdom may rest in childhood than appears later, when our brains reconstruct memory in ways most congenial at the time. Onward from childhood, the passing years obscure the pulse of youth, of young adulthood then into maturity, each passage layering upon what came before. Every stage fraught with emotional awakenings. Only with the perspective of age and experience might we finally settle upon a fuller understanding of our lives.

And these assessments may shock or surprise as the heart circles and purrs its way into its final life phase.

A Tuesday night when I was a young teenager.

My mother and I were watching television. Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater, a never-miss. She sat in the far corner of the sofa while I sprawled beside her.

My father, as usual, was at his desk, stacked with files. He had another few hours of work after the daily twelve at his store. On the floor sat his briefcase, more like a small suitcase, bulging with more files, more papers. Relentless in his efforts to stay ahead of his competitors in the furniture business in this small town, he read all the daily newspapers ads then did his own paperwork should a wayward number have gotten by his secretary. My mother and I would go to bed at ten while he worked another three hours, the neighborhood long asleep before he finally climbed the stairs.

Then, another typical evening. But as it turned out, unlike any other.

My father asked a favor.

Files heavy against his chest.

“Pundy”- his endearing nickname for my mother – “Would you please get me a drink of water?”

A rare request, and so trifling.

“No, I’m busy. Get it yourself,” she answered.

My heart jumped furiously. My tears a whiplash response.

Look at him, for heaven’s sake, I wanted to shout. He’s working night and day for you, for us. And you can’t get him a glass of water? He can’t even climb out from the burden of papers on his lap to stand up, I cried to myself.

Yet she did nothing.

I did nothing.

All my life, I wondered why.

Was I a self-absorbed teenager? Taken up with a stupid television program? Would my mother think me insolent for doing what she would not? Her refusal felt so hostile, I was afraid to intervene. And I considered myself a nice kid. I adored my father.

But I didn’t get up.

Even worse. From that day until he died, I wanted to apologize. But I never did, hoping he had forgotten.

I was a young married woman when he died, pregnant with the son who would bear his name. I sat in the pew, his coffin before me and cried bitter tears. Others thought, poor Pamela, such a loss, this good father, this good man.

They could not know I cried for never having said I was sorry.

For never bringing him that glass of water.

I can write long stories about episodes such as these – the circumstances under which they occurred, the judgment of positions, right and wrong, mine and others. Amends proffered, or not. And if so, why. And if not, why. The painful residue that lingers, embedded. Everyone would shake their collective heads: “Yes, sure. Of course. I know what you mean,” they would respond. “Something similar has happened to me.”

Why revisit in depth previous moments that either might pass for nostalgia or sting our conscience, you might ask. The present is challenge enough.

But would not a reckoning transform our emotional history? Empty the pail of regret and fill up another with insight and closure?

So let’s return to where we started. Then all that came after. A journey to recall ordinary yet life-altering happenings that are fixed in our minds and hearts. Eventually, perhaps, to span chasms, sprout wings.

Moments that mattered.

BUY THE BOOK HERE

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An interior designer and painter, Pamela Hull wrote her first book Where’s My Bride? at age sixty.  This venture was to be a one-time effort, a tribute to a remarkable man and marriage.  However, as the endeavor unfurled, she unearthed a deep love for writing narrative. Henceforth, she would abandon her beloved design career to become a serious writer.

Ms. Hull’s essays and poetry have been widely published in literary journals such as The Bellevue Literary Review, Ars Medica, Lumina, Blood and Thunder, and North Dakota Quarterly.  Her recent book SAY YES! Flying Solo After Sixty explores how neither age nor being alone is an impediment to living a rich life, a significant work for men and women of all ages.

In her current work Moments that Mattered the author writes stories of ordinary experiences that were passed over or dismissed but in recall hold clues to lifetime behaviors, attitudes, choices.        

Her two children were born on the East Coast and raised on the West.  Despite bicoastal lures, the author chooses to reside in Manhattan for the grand adventure of flying solo in a great city.

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing