Time is ticking away.
As of this writing, Elizabeth Graver is a professor at Boston College. When ‘The Body Shop” appeared in BASS 1991 with the first publication of the story appearing in The Southern Review, 1990 Spring Issue, she was all of 26 years old.
When did the embryo of this story begin to develop in Graver’s mind? She gives some hints as to how she finds inspiration for her stories in the contributor's notes at the end of the volume. I love her scrapbook method - mostly because she pulls some of her ideas from newspapers.
These stories are time machines.
We know that these short stories are written, rolled up stuffed into their bottles and thrown into the ocean and for a short period of time, for most of them was up on many shores.
But then, some of the bottles are pulled into the current of time and drift for years finally washing up on shores years or decades after they were first set afloat.
I have to think that this thought passes through the minds of authors as they write, submit and earn publication. Perhaps it drives them forward to write more - knowing that their words will be consumed by someone...someday.
I have found that I focus a great deal on time when I reflect on these stories. Perhaps it is because I find myself growing older. The forward march of time is something that we haven’t yet found a way to slow.
As I stood in the shower this morning, thinking about this project, and thinking about how I do more thinking about this project than writing on it, my thoughts about it drifted towards its future and those who would consume it after I threw it in the ocean.
A little game that W. has started playing these past few weeks as various family birthdays approach goes a little like this.
W: “Daddy...how old are you again?
Me: “(I give him my age)”
W: “How many years until I am that old?” Me: “Let’s do the math”
W: “Wow...that’s a long time!’
Me: Yup...sure is”
W: “How old will you be when I am (my age now)?”
Me: “Let’s do the math.”
W: “What!!! No way...that’s so old! - But it’s a long time away.”
Me: “It sure is”
And then I swallow hard, clear my throat and hope he remembers this little game when he’s “old”.
After having sons, I think a lot more about my behavior and how they see me behave. Of course, I strive to set a good example but I recognize that I sometimes fail.
I am fully aware that there will be a time where I might fail my sons in character no matter how hard I try, they will disagree or discover the “truth” about a previously held perception.
I know the teen years will be challenging for all of us. That’s life.
What I think most parents hope for though is that their children will be there for them in their last years.
I want them there to steady my walk, to correct my memory...or to excuse my failing memory.
I want them there to make the difficult decisions about my life or M’s life when we are no longer able to do so.
He and his brother will be there when I and his mother are no longer here.
They too, as Graver’s character does, will someday look back on their life and consider it, just as I do, too frequently these days.
So as we plays his little age game, he has no idea of the responsibility that we are placing on them.
-unfairly -
We cannot expect them to blindly fulfill these duties.
We can only hope to raise them to know the right thing to do.
