Memoir Notes: 1

In the process. Writing. Memoir. Breaking things apart. Breaking things down. Breaking. This is an earring that belonged to my sister. I had the pair. Dropped one. Broke it. I wish I had kept the pieces. But I wasn't thinking then about this. I did keep the other one, the unbroken one. It's some kind of stone polished, flat. Tiger Eye maybe. A rectangle with a circle, a hole, in the center. I could show you the whole piece, but it isn't the whole that interests me right now. In the process. What I am showing you is the scanned image of an earring shattered with a photo app "healing" tool. Across the surface of the scanner my sister's ashes glitter. Bits of bone. Tissue. Bits of me. My kidney that became hers. Becomes her. Becomes me. The ashes a mess atop the scanner (something I hadn't considered; no doubt there will be residue in photos contracts and objects scanned in the future). But look at her! Me. Memoir. Transformed. Human. Mineral. Bone. Blood. Not living but alive. What we shared. I have ideas. Things I want to say about my sister. Me. Us. I've written some essays. Made notes. Drafts in progress. But right now I'm looking. Seeing. Rearranging. Re-seeing. Knowing differently. Learning. Breaking. Healing.