Indiana:1880something

8:21am                   My Morning Report                   28°  Boise

I have until 10am to writing this morning. Then I have to eat breakfast and get dressed to hop in the car and drive to Ontario to meet my cousin Joe at an antiques mall and pick up one of his lamps for a customer here. It's foggy out this morning and gray ... drab. Looks like a great day to stay home all day in front of my vid-fire and live in my mind, writing about my memories, trying to make them into a book.

Yesterday I began outlining some high points in my life and either I have some amazing memories or I'm enamored with myself and think my experiences are more interesting than they are. I never before thought my life was worthy of a book but losing Stephen has made me dive deep into it, looking for answers as to why he was so tortured and what part did I play in it? --- and how could I possibly have headed it off had I known more? Now, after over two years of exploration and writing, I see that my life has been more complex then I could imagine. It really does feel like I've lived a movie script instead of a life! Only this particular movie is way too long to be an average movie, it would have to be a 6 part mini-series.

Part One .... April 1953

I am born to a 16 year old mother in a tiny town in Oregon. My people are poor but vivid, possessing keen intellects combined with sharp humor --- Descendants of the Scots (McDaniel) and the English (Adams). My own father seems to have been German (Hesseltine) and since he's still alive, I should ask him about that. I know very little of my fathers line or my grandfather Adams line. My lineage through my mother and grandmother is where I'm most familiar and I guess that's where the story will come from.

If this were a movie, I'd begin filming in Indiana. 1880something. My great grandmother Rachael Riley McDaniel is getting on a train with several trunks and the two youngest of her children. The three oldest are married and are staying behind with their families. Rachael is a widow. Her husband has recently died, Had McDaniel, and she is intent on starting anew out West, Spokane, Washington, where her sister and her family moved several years before. (I have this story in a box in the shed somewhere, I should dig it out). I just love this story and find it so inspiring! The intrepid Rachael taking her life in her hands and setting out on a journey to a strange land, leaving everything safe and familiar behind. I love the idea of writing this story as the beginning. I'm certain that our lives and what we experience begin well before our births and carry over long after we die and in this way we are connected to humanity, to the whole of life as we think it is.

Maybe everyone has a huge story to tell. Maybe that's why we all love stories so much, love hearing about how others came about, what happened to them and what they did about it. There's room in life for all stories and I'm so very pleased to be working at telling mine --- the story of me and my family, the ones before me and the ones who came after.

My genetic history ends with Nathan. I can't tell you how sad that idea makes me. After all I've been through in this life, there is one person standing between me and oblivion. In the big picture I know that it doesn't matter what little bits of genetics flow from the past into the future but it still makes me sad to think that none of my little bits will go forward except by way of words on a page. I have toyed with the idea of asking Nathan to contribute to a sperm bank so that at the least, there would be that much to carry forward even if we would never know if any of it were used or even fruitful.

I know, I veer all over the place. I'm constantly running around the pool, trying to find just the right spot to jump in. I get a toe in once in a while and then jerk it back out again and then continue my pacing. What I want is in the pool, so many people and things bobbing around. It's all so interesting and distracting!

OK, this has been fun, the third day of typing my pages instead of handwriting, and I'm happy and encouraged by the results and how fast I can do this. Now if I want to come back and yank something out of this to use in the big story, I can do that at any time.

Bye for now ....