Finding a Story

Williamsburg Wreath



Working on a new story.

Here is one way you find a new story.

When I was sitting in Mass a few weeks ago -
mind wandering
drifting
escaping the lifeless sermon.

Images suddenly surfaced.
A place, people, things that happened
They came out of the past -
Seemingly from nowhere
Un-bidden.


The images keep bubbling up -
Taking me back to Baltimore, MD in 1954





I was a young (18) student nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital
Away from home for the first time
Out in the wide world

Rather than writing essays for English Lit
We were fingering the bones of a skeleton
Studying our withered cadaver -
Reeking of his perserving formaldehyde.

Our subjects - the human body and how it works
And then - - how it breaks down
and dies - -
or not.

Back-rubs and bedpans
Shots and pills
Enemas and IVs

Autopsies
and case studies.
The stuff of HOUSE.

Along with falling in love.

Things I have not thought about
For more than 50 years
Anecedotes
and what Sean Buvala calls
floaters
tucked into the
nooks and crannies of my memory.

Have you explored like this
Wandered a time period
Sifted it?

Its where the stories come from.

Eventually.