The Chicago Tribune calls Dawn Raffel’s The Secret Life of Objects "a personal catalog of mementos, talismans and heirlooms, all made meaningful by the passing of time." This month, inspired by Raffel's stunning memoir, we’re inviting writers and readers to share thoughts and memories about artifacts large and small that connect them to important people, places and moments.
From Barbara Taylor Sissel:
Barbara Taylor Sissel writes complex, intense situational fiction in the tradition of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve. Her indie published novel, The Volunteer, has been called "richly told...beautifully crafted." Her next novel is forthcoming from MIRA in 2013.
Visit Barbara online at www.barbarataylorsissel.com.
Win a copy of Dawn Raffel’s The Secret Life of Objects! Share your story. We'll publish the best ten entries on our blog, and Jaded Ibis will send you the book. Click here for details.
From Barbara Taylor Sissel:
He said before he
left us for good that he felt safest driving in his car; he felt as
if no one could get to him there and he laughed, but not easily. I
thought about that a lot after he was gone for good. I always felt
safest with him. He was my safe place, but now he was gone and I was
left flailing. I kept reaching for the bottom, the walls, the floor,
the end of my panic and all the purchase I found was thin air.
And then, one night, unable to sleep in the bed I had shared with him, I brought my pillow upstairs and crawled into the brass and wrought iron bed my great-grandmother had purchased from the used furniture man one morning when he brought his wagon by. He came regularly to my granny’s in those long ago days. She was a good customer. Being frugal to her practical-minded core she could see no reason to shop for new when second hand would do just as well.
And then, one night, unable to sleep in the bed I had shared with him, I brought my pillow upstairs and crawled into the brass and wrought iron bed my great-grandmother had purchased from the used furniture man one morning when he brought his wagon by. He came regularly to my granny’s in those long ago days. She was a good customer. Being frugal to her practical-minded core she could see no reason to shop for new when second hand would do just as well.
That particular
morning, she needed a bed for the upstairs sleeping porch and that’s
where the men hauled the one she’d bought and where it sat every
summer that we visited her as children. There were seven kids in all
counting my cousins and usually three were crowded into that bed to
sleep like logs in a salt-sweet tangle of skinny arms and legs.
I could taste that memory when I settled into the bed again, grown up now, heart fractured beyond mending, or so I thought. It was as if my body remembered falling asleep to the uneven song of crickets, the delicious scent of dust mixed with honeysuckle that was delivered through the screens with the gift of an evening breeze. Once in a while a car came down the street and its headlights would sweep the bead board ceiling. The adult murmur of conversation drifted up the stairs, a lullabye. The small porch was a haven filled with sleeping children, filled with comfort and love.
Lying in that bed as an adult, I recalled the sense of what it had been to me when I was a child in muscle and bone, in heart and soul, and I slept, and I was safe for a little while.
You can see the bed and read more about Barbara here on her blog!
I could taste that memory when I settled into the bed again, grown up now, heart fractured beyond mending, or so I thought. It was as if my body remembered falling asleep to the uneven song of crickets, the delicious scent of dust mixed with honeysuckle that was delivered through the screens with the gift of an evening breeze. Once in a while a car came down the street and its headlights would sweep the bead board ceiling. The adult murmur of conversation drifted up the stairs, a lullabye. The small porch was a haven filled with sleeping children, filled with comfort and love.
Lying in that bed as an adult, I recalled the sense of what it had been to me when I was a child in muscle and bone, in heart and soul, and I slept, and I was safe for a little while.
You can see the bed and read more about Barbara here on her blog!
Barbara Taylor Sissel writes complex, intense situational fiction in the tradition of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve. Her indie published novel, The Volunteer, has been called "richly told...beautifully crafted." Her next novel is forthcoming from MIRA in 2013.Visit Barbara online at www.barbarataylorsissel.com.
Win a copy of Dawn Raffel’s The Secret Life of Objects! Share your story. We'll publish the best ten entries on our blog, and Jaded Ibis will send you the book. Click here for details.
