New Years, Old Years and Gifts of the Past

That’s me with my back to camera, in baggy underpants and socks with my hand on Snoopys Good Grief Glider. And that’s my brother, David Staley, sucking his finger and mugging for the camera. He doesn’t do that anymore, suck his fingers I mean. He is still very much a mugger for any camera. God bless him. And that’s my mother, crouched in the back, avoiding the camera no doubt.

And the lantern hanging at the top of the frame, well its identical to the one my mother gave me for Christmas this year, with this very photo tucked inside. It’s amazing how a poorly composed, candid snapshot can sum up so much, can pull out so many feelings and memories. Good feelings. Good memories.

That was over 30 years ago. I don’t remember much in that photo. I don’t remember Snoopy’s Good Grief Glider. I remember the rug. I remember the lantern. I have written about the lantern before and this is what inspired my mothers gift.

I turned it over in my hands. My own daughter, now older than I was in the photo above, asked, “How does it work dad?” I showed her the lever that lifts the globe and tried to explain what kerosene is. “It’s like gasoline but it smells better.” At least to me. I like the smell of kerosene. I find it comforting somehow. Sense memory. Danielle’s mother wiped away tears, understanding what the lantern meant in a way that only a mother can.

I get accused of not being open. Maybe that’s a defensive way to say it. Maybe they are not accusing, just noting. Anyways, it probably wouldn’t bother me if it weren’t true. It is true. I don’t know how to explain to people what it was like. I feel like if I do explain things, then I am exaggerating. Dramatizing. But I’m not. I don’t have to. People always ask what it was like, growing up in Alaska, the way we did. How can I answer that? What’s it like growing up in Cleveland? The truth is my youngest 3 siblings don’t even understand how I grew up. Things change. Our experiences and conditions growing up were radically different.

I write a lot about perspective. I feel like I need to take better care of my past. I need to tend the garden of my memories with more regularity. I need to look both directions down the road of life as I’m traveling. Check the rear view mirror every so often and make sure I’m taking the best turn when the turn arrives.

Some day I’d like to be a grandfather and I’d like to share these things with my grandchildren. I have serious regrets about not being able to mine a better sense of my own history from my grandparents. I think quite often of all the stories I’ll never hear. They’re all dead now. Azure loves to play with my iPhone and when I tell her that nothing like it was available when she was born it trips her out. “Really Dad?” She likes to ask what else wasn’t around. Like when I was her age there weren’t DVD’s or cell phones. “Wow Dad, really?”

I feel pretty lucky to be alive in 2010. It’s just a cool number. A cool series of numbers. But what to do? Make more money? Pay more bills? Make some cool shit? Try and have fun? Maybe go on a vacation? Get in better shape? Yadda yadda. I’ve been here 10 years. I feel the weight of that. 10 years.

Thanks for the lantern Mom, you gave me a lot to think about.

-Staley out