Day 4: Box o' Memories

Today, I dropped off my day one books at Latter Library. As I asked about where to place the books, the woman leafed through them and abruptly turned to me.
"You went to NOCCA." "Yes." "The Creative Writing program." "Yes." "With Brad Richard." "Yes."
I remember saying something in my first post about books representing my life and personality...but I had no idea they pinpointed me so specifically.

When I said yesterday that I was an optimistic pack rat, that was no understatement. When I was younger, I used to think that I was going to be a great writer somewhere and win the Newberry Award for some stellar piece of fiction. So the next stop in that train of thought (obviously) was that someone was going to want to compile my letters and papers for a closer look at my life and work. I mean, who wouldn't want to know what my friend Danika and I used to write about in our shared journal in middle school? (Boys, celebrities, the usual...just in case you were curious)

Needless to say, I am not a great writer somewhere with silver Newbery seals on the front covers of my esteemed works. Mostly, I keep the papers and the knick-knacks now for their sentimental value or to share with my children and grandchildren someday (For example, I know they'll be totally rapt when I teach them how to play Pogs, so the pink Pog tube with the dog sticker on it stays). But today, it's out with the old stuff I just don't need any more: christmas cards from years ago, disposable-camera pictures of random Italian monuments, those little crosses you make on Palm Sunday with blessed palm leaves.

And so, a tribute to a few things on their way to the trash/recycling...

2003
I was in a bad mood the day we moved my things into my first year dorm room, so my mom bought me a smoothie...and this. Who knows what the pills inside actually do to your body, but this packet sat nailed to my wall my entire first year of college. Call it the placebo effect or whatever you want, but that was a good year.

2005
If I remember correctly, this story started out as an AIM conversation and somehow turned into a fantasy short story about a woman who lives on an island and helps a man that was shipwrecked on the beach, who is also the first man she's ever met. Not award-winning material, but it was kind of fun to write.

2007
On Monday April 16, 2007, a Virginia Tech student named Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and then himself. In honor of those lost, UVA's Catholic Student Ministry hosted a vigil service. The homily was awful and insensitive, but when another priest, Fr. Luke, stood up to speak, he managed to save it all. We were so thankful, we wrote a song for him, called "Holy Back" (to the tune of "Sexy Back"). We never gave it to him, but hopefully, he knew his words were appreciated.

2000's
Confession: I am OCD when it comes to tracking my finances. But you would be too if you'd paid as many overdraft fees as I have. Still, it's 2011, time to let the college receipts go.

2007-2008
The walls were really thin in the apartment I lived in during my graduate year at UVA, and the guys that lived next door had interesting taste in music. Everything from Kanye West to Cher to the Sound of Music. In this notebook, the girls and I wrote down every song we could make out, starting with "Total Eclipse of the Heart." As a parting gift that May, we typed up the entire list and gave it to the guys. And they cracked up.

2005-2008
As my part-time job in college and graduate school, I substituted and worked as an assistant at the International School of Charlottesville, a small preschool not far from where I lived. In addition to making wonderful friends there (Geraldine! Virginie!) and learning to speak French much better than when I started, I received a lot of wonderful drawings from the kids there. This picture is from Emilie, one of the teacher's daughters, and a student in a class I worked with.



Papers and string and newspaper clippings and bags and letters and pictures.
Gone but not forgotten.