Aunt Boo's House

The Jeffers’ cottage in Carmel - Tor House – remains today, half a century after Robinson Jeffer’s death, with the dishes and photographs, inkwells and piano, books and furniture, and hundreds of precious objects intact. Including the bed where Jeffers died. The docent who gives tours knows all the stories because Una Jeffers kept a meticulous inventory of what they owned and the history of everything.

 I had spent a summer in Carmel when I was eight years old, staying with my aunt, and after the tour of Tor House and Hawk Tower, I found what I thought was my aunt’s house on Santa Fe Road. I think it was Aunt Boo’s house – old Spanish, two blocks up from the village and a chimney that looked like it could have been the one I remembered in the living room, but everyone who would have known whether in fact this was her house, is now gone. And with them the memory of all the things that house had held, the stories and history, has vanished. Nothing had been written down.

 

 

Comments

[Laura Hoopes]

Lovely gentle argument for keeping a journal! I love Tor House and my first published short story was based on the night after Una Jeffers was diagnosed with cancer. It stimulates the imagination. Boo House looks like that kind of a place too.
cheers,
Laura H

[Cheryl Wright]

A compelling case for writing down one's life experiences.

[Sharon Lippincott]

Nothing was written down. What a deeply sad statement. But fragments remain, written on your heart, in your memory. ...

[Barbara]

Laura - Wow - that's amazing! (and wasn't she an amazing woman!)
Cheryl and Sharon - Yes.

[carol perkins]

You hit a nerve with this one: history vanishes, people just don't record the dailiness of their lives often enough.

[Barbara B.]

I am deeply saddened where all that remains is an overgrown walkway with steps leading to a crumbling stone fireplace.
My heart skips a beat when Paper Whites, Tulips or Daffodils line that walkway, whispering their secrets once more.
History may vanish, yet my writings & journals are here to stay, no matter how far they may roam.
Barbara B.

[Jo]

This struck such a chord inside Barbara! The sad finality of "Nothing had been written down." A brief, yet powerful post and comments as well. Thank you for this.

[Birgit]

Hello Peter, I am begining to read your blogs on Genesis, sattring from the beginning. One thing I noted in this initial offerings is that you want to know what the author is saying, what the author's experience of God is. What is interesting about his mode of reading the text, and I am sure you are aware of fromtheAnchor bible, is that the text has multiple authors, and later editors. so the original stories say much about God, but woven together, they represent imges of the God of Abraham and Sarah as viewed through the lens of exile, and those views represent authors who had very different interests from one another in reestablishing a community of God in exile, and later, in return form exile when identity markers were a major issue.Later in the first century, these stories were not read accoridng to the authors intensions, but througha filter of a peopel oppressed by an empire, and who again trying to preserve an national identity under mitigating circumstances, with any number of representative voices competing against one another to establish a response to opression.Teh text is a living one that only has meaning according to that which a community, whether Christian, Jewish, or Pagan, give to it according to various filters through which the text is viewed. Fortunately, historical criticism and language arts, and other forms of textual criticism allow a reader to do this with some fairly important tools that allow us to interpret the text with some integrity (or not). I'll move on to your next blog now, and I look forward to going through them.

[Diksha]

thanks Jackie, and for being so much a part of my : thank you Lillie! and for all your fiihndserp, encouragement and support : solid foundations Jan, yes, that's what I needed / need the ground beneath our feet thanks for every word you've helped me write : thanks for your enthusiastic support Jean! I'm glad you like my photos, I think they'll play an ever increasing part in what I do. I hadn't realised the significance of the date when I scheduled this, but it really does seem to be significant, and affirms the feeling of doing the right : it is indeed Rosa. Strangely I realised after I'd scheduled this that I'd chosen the day of the autumn equinox, a day of turning, a day of both relinquishing and harvesting. And so it seems to : thanks for your feedback, and you're right, it is a good place to be.

[Karii]

Joanna,Finding your blog on the day you posted your eesintsal lines was a bonus for me. All I had to do was read through your twelve faves to get a feel for you and your blog. Enough to know I will be coming back for more.I can't answer your question in its entirety, because I lost my blog in a fatal cyber accident during the month of November. I mourn the loss of those precious nine months of daily writing. My new blog has only been active for seven days now.The most valuable thing I learned from its loss? Blogging is an integral part of who I am as a writer. It is a way for me to connect with other writers, chance viewers who may end up as cyber friends and those who know me differently in Real Life, but can learn to appreciate what goes on in my dreams. Thanks for the valuable info!.-= Cat Woods s last blog .. =-.

[Syid]

Thank you Tiffanie This is such a new adventure for me. I've been in Taos, NM for a week at a sleint writing retreat with Natalie Goldberg and am anxious to get back. Love you, Paula