On Moving and Memories

So as I mentioned, I've been moving my blog from homeschoolblogger.com over here post by post. I can't begin to express the emotions involved in this process.

Oh wait! I'm a writer! Expressing emotions in writing is something I can do well, actually, most of the time. Or much of the time.

My friend Donna has recently gone through this process in real life. She's packed up 7 years of life and moved across town. In selling her house, she had to do painful things like paint over tiny handprints and leave a pretty pink little girl's room, knowing it'll probably be painted over. She had to toss out loads and loads of stuff and look through all kinds of things that tug on our heart strings: pictures and baby books and tiny outfits. Those things that makes us realize: our children are growing up. They will never, ever be who they were two years ago, or four years ago, or even six months ago. Our lives our constantly shifting.

Just this past month I noticed two things about Duncan that gave me that rush of bitter/sweetness: he no longer says "leh-low" for "yellow," and he has now realized that the stuff he eats in the morning is "oatmeal," not "oap-meal." "Grape-Grandpa" passed on last year; but were he still alive, he'd probably be Great-Grandpa to Duncan now. We have no more baby words in our home.

In our entertainment center, way at the back, we have a couple of shoeboxes full of old videotapes of little Jesse mostly, and some of little Laurel, and about one minute's worth of baby Duncan (that's about when the camcorder died). I can't watch them. I can't watch one single minute's worth of them because I feel too darn melancholy. I know I should get them out. Laurel would absolutely love them. But I can't. Nothing marks the passage of time like looking at old videotapes.

But I can handle the writing. I can handle the slices of life and still-life photographs that make up my world. Perhaps my favorite part of this moving process has been revisiting my Monday Memories. In these posts I've reminisced about lots of holidays; about friends through the years --even way back when and often in what we thought were rockin' outfits; and about pumpkins and flowers. I've watched my children grow: my oldest, my little girl, and my baby. I've remembered highlights from my own childhood, and our early years together. And my family—probably half of these posts are about my brothers, my parents, and my growing up years.

Sometimes people ask me how I have time to blog. The question for me is: how could I not blog? This is the reward. I spend 20 minutes looking for a photograph; I scan it in or upload it from iPhoto. I write about it. And what I'm left with: a moment captured forever. Handprints that can't be painted over.

I'm thinking about starting an actual Monday Memory "Mr. Linky" type deal. Would you participate? Could I be so motivated?