I bought my husband a Valentine a few days ago, just like I’ve been doing for the last four decades. Yep, we’ve been together that long, and even though it has been that long, I still want him to know I love him in that way. He shows me in multiple ways that he still feels that way about me. We are lucky, I know, and I don’t take our relationship for granted.

My husband has a romantic side. He likes the Los Angeles Lakers AND Jane Austen and isn’t embarrassed to be one in only a handful of men in the theatre to see a Jane Austen-ish kind of movie. He’s also a generous and clever gift-giver–both clever in the kind of gifts he chooses for me, and clever in the way he presents them to me. I’m sure that store clerks who help him with his purchases wish they were so lucky.

I have lots of stories I could write that illustrate his romantic side. Why would I want to write them? Because I want our children and future descendants to know that we loved each other in that way.

Often our children only see us as fuddy-duddy parents and can’t visualize us having a life before they came into the world. I suspect you know what I mean. I’ve taught personal history writing for the last 15 years, and the majority of my students tell me they’re writing their stories because they want their children to know what their lives were like before they became parents. Writing stories about the romantic aspects of our lives is one way of expanding our children’s vision of who we are.

So write that romantic story. Here are a few story ideas you might consider:

• Follow my lead and write a story that illustrates your spouse’s romantic side. When I gave this assignment to my class last year, I was greeted by a blank stare…followed by some mumbling…followed by some derisive laughter. “Now listen, folks,” I retaliated, “not everyone’s a hearts and flowers kind of person.” We then discussed various ways spouses show affection, like cleaning the house when you’re sick, or praising you to their children, or always looking nice for you, or watching a Jane Austen movie with you when they’d rather watch the Lakers…that kind of thing.
• Write about an adolescent “crush.” Reveal your awkwardness and all the embarrassing details. Be real, and your family will see you in a new light.
• Write about your first kiss. Who cares if it was a bomb. (Mine was!) Write about it anyway. Be sure to put your story in its setting. Let readers SEE where the deed was done. Was there music playing in the background? Johnny Mathis set the stage for my big dud…”The Twelfth of Never.”
• Write about your first date–or any interesting/crazy/embarrassing/romantic date you had. Teens don’t date anymore. Show your children’s generation what it was like in “your day.”
• Write about a marriage proposal. Be as specific as you can. Who said what? How did you feel?
• Write about your wedding day. Think of some interesting, fun, or surprising incidents that made the day stand out so your story is uniquely yours. Keep it personal…and romantic.
• Write about your honeymoon. One of my students, an 87-year-old widow, wrote about her wedding night in surprising detail. Yes! It was a lovely story, written sensitively, and with great love. Her children will read the story and be happy their parents loved each other so much.

Now, whatever topic you choose, I recommend you do the following:

• Write honestly and personally. Reveal your feelings, your disappointments, feelings of awkwardness, embarrassment, silliness. Show the real you.
• Use lots of detail–about people and settings. Where did incidents take place? Let us SEE it. What were you wearing? What did other people look like? Add “sense details,” if appropriate–sound, smell, sight,  taste, and feel.
• Create scenes, if possible. Don’t just write a summary. Try to remember what was said, and re-create conversations as you remember them, capturing the emotional truth of the experience.
• Snag readers’ attention from the get-go. Some experts advise beginning in the middle of things. Too often we feel like we need all kinds of back-story before we get to the interesting part. Don’t do it.
• Don’t be in a rush to get it finished. Write a rough draft and let it sit for a while. You’ll soon think of things you’ll want to add.

That’s it. I think you’ll enjoy this writing assignment. Get into the spirit. Play some Johnny Mathis, or whoever rocks your boat. Browse through some old photos albums. Then sit at your desk and put it all down on paper.

Shakespeare wrote one…a story he turned into a play he called A Winter’s Tale. I bet you have a few winter stories you could tell. Growing up in Southern California, I experienced few WINTER winters. However, I did spend some winters in Utah during my college years and learned what it was like to trudge through the snow to classes on frigid mornings. Later, after I married, I shivered through three Boston winters when my husband was in law school and believed I was getting frostbite every time I gripped my car’s steering wheel. Nevertheless, most of my childhood winters were primarily bathed in California sunshine.

I thought about this recently because I had lunch last week with a new friend who moved here from Utah. This is her first California winter, and when I joined her at the restaurant, she was wearing a wool sweater and slacks, even though the temperature outside was in the mid-80s, hot even for California standards. “I know I look ridiculous,” she said, when she greeted me, “but it’s January. I must wear my winter clothes.” From there we gabbed about the different ways each of us experienced winter during our childhoods.

I can’t think of too many stories from my past I would label specifically winter stories, because I always seem to think a winter story should involve snow. I have a vivid memories of what my brothers and I called “going to the snow,” the two or three occasions when my parents took us to the Angeles National Forest about an hour north of Los Angeles. These excursions always began with us rising before the sun did and pulling on our outer clothes over our pajamas–because we had no real snow clothes–and driving to Frazier Park. If it rained in the winter in Southern California, it likely snowed at Frazier Park, where the elevation was around 4700 feet. We kids loved those snow trips, sledding down the gentle slopes on cardboard squares, drinking hot chocolate from thermoses. We sometimes brought Kool Aid or Tang with us and sprinkled it on the snow. We thought we were pretty clever when we scooped it into cups and fashioned our very own snow cones. By midday, we drove home to the mild climate of Manhattan Beach, where we lived a few miles from the Pacific Ocean.

I have a number of winter stories related to my years in Utah and Boston that are specifically related to snowy weather–driving in scary, treacherous conditions, being snowed in, etc. One favorite sweet memory involves rushing to the hospital one snowy night in Boston four days before Christmas to give birth to our first child. We brought our baby son home in a Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve. A frightened new mother of 21, I walked into my apartment to discover my husband had bought and decorated a Christmas tree in my absence. That’s a story I definitely need to write.

Now, what about you? What winter tales do you have to tell? I’ve made a list of a few ideas to jog your memory a bit. When you get a moment this week, light the fireplace, don some comfy slippers, and make yourself a mug of hot chocolate—even if you do live in California—and let your mind drift back to a memory about…

1. A time you were snowed in
2. An accident you had in the snow
3. Chores associated with winter
4. Snow fun—skiing, sledding, ice skating, making a snowman or a snow fort
5. Winter in a warm climate. What you like about it. What you dislike about it
6. The winter blahs
7. The clothing of winter. What you liked, what you didn’t. Snow suits, the sweater you had to have
8. Winter cooking
9. Mishaps due to the weather
10. An important event that occurred during the winter
11. Going to school in the snow
12. Preparing the house or yard for winter

Good luck,
Memoir Mentor

PS: Those are my cute grandkids in the photos, in Park City, Utah, and that’s my dog Emma sniffing the shovel.

It starts after I heft the last of the Christmas decorations into the garage attic. I look at the blank spaces in my house where the manger scene, Christmas village, and other decorations sat and realize I need to fill them with the pictures, flower arrangements, and other doo-dads that sit in those places the other months of the year.

Pulling those accessories out of their storage places makes me look at them in a new light. Maybe I ought to arrange them differently this year, I think. Why should the house look the same year after year? And so I create a new arrangement on the coffee table with photos, picture books, and a candle. It looks pretty nice, but it could use a little greenery to soften the effect, so I borrow a small arrangement from another room to see if it works. It does. Then I work on another area, soon moving things from room to room, rummaging through drawers for this and that, setting a few things aside for Good Will, and…I’m on a roll.

I can feel the buzz of an organizing binge taking on a life of its own. It can last for days as I move from tabletops to bookcases to drawers to closets. Sometimes I become so engaged in the process, I forget to eat, which is a good thing. You know, because of my Pioneer Woman escapade?

All that happened last week. And it’s mostly done. And it feels good, freeing my brain for tackling a new year of memoir-related work. You knew I was going to get around to the M-word, didn’t you? Still feeling the vestiges of my buzz, I’ve been thinking how some of this organizing energy could be applied to personal history projects. A little bit of memoir housekeeping can free your mind for greater creativity—maybe even spark some story ideas. Here are a few organizational projects you might consider…

• How about last year’s calendar? Do you still have it? Did you write down events and appointments on it? If so, you have a good resource for reconstructing your year and maybe have some material for a story or  two. Go through last year’s calendar and make a list of all the things you did. Assign a date to each event and jot down a few notes. Is there any story material there? If you have calendars for previous years, do the same thing. What an interesting project this could be. Sometimes one year blends into the next–particularly as we age–and we don’t take note of interesting things that happen. My students tell me they don’t like to write about their adult years because they’re boring. Maybe not…check out last year’s calendar.

• In a similar vein, consider making lists of all the books you read last year or movies you saw, projects you completed, or places you visited, etc. I’d love to have lists like this from my grandparents. If you can’t remember much about last year, start keeping lists this year. For some years, I’ve tried to keep a list of the books I’ve read and post them on this blog and, because I’m a movie fan, I keep a list of all the movies I’ve seen each year and assign them a grade. My entire family does this and we have fun exchanging our lists every year.

• If you haven’t already done so, begin creating a life chronology (timeline), a surefire way to begin thinking about your life in story terms.  My blog post here explains how to do it and why it’s important.

• Have you digitized all the important records that pertain to your life? I haven’t, but it’s on this year’s project list. I plan to scan and save on my computer all my school report cards, along with personal documents and certificates of various kinds so they’re all in one place. I may want to use some as illustrations in my personal history. Frankly, I haven’t foreseen all the ways I can use them, but I know this project will assure that I have a copy of everything in one place—a computer file or DVD—instead of spread around the house in scrapbooks and manila folders.

• Do you know what stories you intend to write this year? Do you know when you intend to write them? If you don’t have a plan, you won’t be as productive. The months will go by and another year will have passed and you won’t have finished your personal history. Make a list of stories you’re going to write and assign a completion date for each one. Be realistic, but be ambitious, too.

These are just a few ideas for getting organized in the memoir way. Some won’t fit your organizational needs or style, but they may spark other projects. If you have ideas that have worked for you, please share them with all of us.

All the best for a fruitful writing life in 2012,
Your Memoir Mentor

I’ve decided this blog post will combine two writing assignments I gave my students recently: Write a story about a holiday memory, and write a story about food.

I’ve  been thinking a lot about food in the last two months, and the scales show it. It’s natural, after all. As Mom and Grandmother, I’m in charge of holiday food preparation (we’re traditional at our house)–and Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two biggest food holidays of the year, right?

Ree Drummond

I discovered “The Pioneer Woman” (TPW) on the Food Network in mid-December, and since then my cooking and waistline have taken off on a new trajectory. After being thoroughly enchanted by TPW’s Christmas show, I checked out her blog and felt like the last person arriving at a gala party. I consider myself a foodie of sorts, and I wonder how I could be so out of the loop. Why, she (Ree Drummond, aka TPW) has a mind-boggling 20-plus million people visit her blog every month. Amazing! Where have I been?

I may be a little slow on the uptake, but I’ve scrambled to make up for lost time. Since watching TPW’s Christmas show, I’ve made her cinnamon rolls TWICE (delivering them to my nearest and dearest the way she did on her show, but without the cowboy duds), her prime rib, cream gravy, and Dutchess potatoes (served on Christmas Eve to rave reviews), and her Italian Chicken Soup (last night’s dinner fare). I’ll say this in my behalf: I’ve spent substantial time looking through the comments on TPW’s blog, and it seems to me that most of of her followers say things like, “Sounds like a yummy recipe. I’ll have to try it.” I just wonder how many of them walk the talk like I’ve done, and in such a short amount of time!

TPW has carved out a great niche for herself in the foodie sector with her city-girl-turned-ranch-wife narrative. That, plus her lively personality and mouth-watering recipes (cinnamon rolls!) have garnered her a well-deserved following. My friend Lorna says I must read her books. Really, how does TPW find the time? She even home-schools her four kids!

This rather long intro, leads me to the  story I’ve prepared to fulfill the two assignments I gave my students. When it comes to writing, I’m usually slow to practice what I preach, but consider this story an effort to fulfill a resolution I set for myself three days ago. There are areas where I, too, need to Walk the Talk.

An Ode to Barbara’s Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

When I married at 19 with minimal cooking experience, I could have been intimidated by my new mother-in-law, who had been a high school home economics teacher before she married. But Barbara was welcoming and gracious, sharing many of her recipes and cooking techniques with me over the years. She knew everything about the basics of cooking, particularly baking. Thanksgiving gave her ample opportunity to show off her baking talents to a very appreciative audience. Pumpkin chiffon pies were one of her specialties.

She typically made her pies the day before Thanksgiving to free herself for other cooking tasks the day of. When her pies were completed, she stored them on wire racks in her laundry room and warned anyone heading that direction to be careful not to disturb her pies.

Barbara prided herself on her pie crust and assumed the role of final arbiter of its quality, assessing the degree of flakiness and worrying about it becoming “soaked” overnight from absorbing too much moisture from the filling. These assessments were mostly made to herself in a muttering voice while we all sat at the table wallowing in a sensory overload with every bite of her incomparable pie. I always seemed to be sitting to her left, a witness to her mutters from time to time.

I had never before tasted pumpkin pie the way she made it. It was light and fluffy, the pumpkin custard folded into whipped egg whites before being cooked on the stove and poured into her baked pie shells. She always made enough pies for everyone in her large family to have two pieces–one an hour or two after dinner, and another later in the evening. She cut the pies in generous wedges after slathering the tops with a thick layer of sweetened whipped cream. Eating Barbara’s pie was like biting into a fluffy pumpkin cloud that melted in your mouth like cotton candy.

I liked the lightness of her recipe compared to the standard custard pumpkin pies I’d been used to, particularly after a heavy Thanksgiving dinner, but some of the “in-laws” who later joined the family didn’t share my opinion. One year after dinner, a lively discussion ensued about the merits of Barbara’s pies compared with the traditional recipe and one of the in-laws came up with humorous labels to distinguish them. Barbara’s pies were “air pies,” he pronounced, and the familiar pumpkin custard pies were labeled “solid state.” Barbara took it all in good humor and the labels stuck.

We lost Barbara a few years ago, and I miss her. Besides teaching me how to cook, she taught me many life lessons I deeply appreciate. This Thanksgiving I looked for her pie recipe and it disturbed me when I couldn’t find the recipe card in my files. I remember exactly what it looked like: Well used, it had pumpkin-colored fingerprints on its edges, the directions written in blue ink in Barbara’s clear hand. Frustrated in not being able to find the card, I went online, Googled “pumpkin chiffon pie” and found a recipe that looked similar to Barbara’s. However, when my daughter-in-law announced that her husband, my son, had “shamed her into making a pumpkin pie” for Thanksgiving, I decided to put off making mine until next year. My daughter-in-law’s pie was delicious but, alas, it was Solid State.

I bet TPW has a recipe for pumpkin pie on her blog. I’ll have to check it out, but judging from what I know of her cooking proclivities, I’d guess she’s a “Solid State” kind of gal.

Thinking about incidents from my past I may write about brings up emotions associated with those experiences. When I write a story about an event in my life, it’s as important that I communicate how the incident made me feel as it is that I describe what happened. One way to accomplish this is to control the story’s mood.

Stories, like people, have a mood, be it fanciful, somber, ironic, angry, scary, etc. Often your story’s mood springs naturally from the emotions you’ve resurrected as you craft your story and intuitively influences your word choices, sentence structure, pacing, and decisions about what you call to the attention of your reader and the amount of detail you ascribe to it. All of these things contribute to your story’s mood. We need to be careful that the mood of our story conveys the emotional experience we attach to it.

As you read the marvelous story below, you will be captivated—perhaps mesmerized is a better word—by its mood. Indeed, our class felt mesmerized when it was read to us in the soft, lilting voice of its author, Molly Shelton. Molly is a careful writer, weighing the effect of her word choices, savoring the experience in her memory as she writes and sharing the details that are important to her. Molly could have told us this story in a variety of ways, but the mood she chose to create lets us experience her adventure the way she experienced it. As you read her story, notice what she does to sweep you along with her to a very special place.

The Tale of an Eagle and an Ego
by Molly Shelton

Jim and I are in Banff, British Columbia. We park our motorhome at the back of the historic Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, just as did the year before, alongside the Bow River. There is still some tension in the air because at breakfast I’d flippantly said, “It would sure be great if you were as thrilled to be with me as you are to get on that golf course!”

“Hon, I thought you wanted to spend the day looking for that eagle. And you know how much I love being here with you and getting to play this course again.”

Somewhat contritely, but still off-put, I replied, “I do…but you’re so excited I feel like I’m in second place when it comes to your golf.”

Jim looked at me. “I don’t even know how to answer that.”

And there it was left. He started asking me about my plans for the day and things were quickly smoothed over.

He has barely taken the key out of the ignition when I jump up and double-check my little backpack to make sure I have everything I need for the next four hours—six, if he decides to play all 27 holes: trail map, binoculars, bird book, a banana, and my

straw hat will take care of the first three hours or so. Later, I will need the post cards, Sharpie pen, colored pencils and, of course, a writing pad and a book for when I sit at the writing table next to the huge windows in the Rundle Room on the mezzanine of the hotel. Flipping the backpack over my shoulder, I eagerly pop open the door and step onto the river rocks. The cold, rushing water charges the air. Jim is just behind me, carrying his golf bag and putting on his cap. 

We are frozen in place, stunned by the beauty surrounding us. I turn my head and look at Jim, and he drops his bag, comes up behind me, and puts his arms around my shoulders. We just stand there. We had remembered the beauty, yes, but you can’t “remember” the feelings of actually being in such a place. The noisy and rambunctious white water bounces off the boulders in the rapids just to our left, and in front of us the icy blue water of the Spray River is flowing down, scratching the sand spits as it melds with the Bow River. Centered in the background are glorious, snow-covered Rocky Mountain peaks with flat wedges of ice and snow packed between them. The early sunlight of this crisp September morning has gilded the snow, reminding me of the gold caps of Egyptian pyramids.

Jim points up and to the right of the river toward his beloved Banff golf course, showing me how it curls between the water’s edge and the ragged foothills. “Just behind that stand of yellow Aspen, see how the course curves around those pine trees? That’s the 5^th hole. A real beauty.” His voice has softened with such love in it.

I turn to him, “Yeah, yeah, get on your way! I need to hit the trails myself and scout out those eagles. If they’re here, I plan on seeing them today! And I hope you get to see a few birdies yourself, Luv.”

In one slow, smooth motion he wraps his arms around me, kisses me, and softly says, “I hope you have as much fun as I plan on having, Honey.” He picks up his bag and is off. Ten feet away he turns and, walking backwards, he calls above the roar of the rushing water, “I’ll see you upstairs at your table later, Babe. Have fun.” I watch him walk away. He’s so eager to get on that course, like a red pony wanting to break into a run.

I pull out my map of the area to get my bearings and head out to find that eagle’s nest I’ve been told about. My quest begins as I walk on the narrow path along the river, with the sounds and sight of the rushing water filling my senses. I reach the Spray River trailhead just as I pass the hotel, and the world quickly slips away. The woods are silent except for the squirrel overhead, telegraphing to the others that a stranger is coming their way.

With the fresh smell of the pines and firs and the sun dappling the path, it’s easy to walk a couple of hours. As I come upon a clear, swift stream, I stop and sit on a half-submerged log and take out my banana. Looking down into the water for fish, I jump back . . . there’s a bird walking on the sand down there! Ohmygosh, it must be a dipper! I scooch my whole body and legs upon the log and slowly peek over to watch it. I’ve read about dippers, but I’ve never seen one. Hopping along on the sand, perhaps five feet below, he stays for six minutes or so, longer than I would have thought possible, and then he just bursts up, feathers sleek and shining, and all around him droplets of water are rocketing. Mid-sized, his grey body is compact and he seems quite plain, but then he turns up his head and opens his long, thin beak and the air is filled with a lovely song, tit-tit-tit-whhh-whhh. I watch him, transfixed, as back into the water he dives. For a while time does not exist; I do not exist. There is only the river and the dipper entwined. The dipper pops up one last time, gives a great shiver to knock off the water, flaps his wings and flies away. I stay on the log, the sun on my back, with my fingers in the cold water. It takes me a couple of minutes to come back into this world and adjust to the sounds and light that I had stepped away from. I sit up and, like the dipper, shake a couple of times before starting my walk again.

The eagles’ nest, I was told, should be about a mile on the other side of this stream, so I get back on the trail and soon cross the footbridge shown on the map. I start looking in the tops of the trees and across the sky, hoping to see that regal bird in flight. As I walk around a huge boulder that a glacier long-ago swept up and dropped off in this open space, in front of me shards of sunlight pierce through a cluster of aspen, turning their yellow and red leaves aflame. I throw my jacket down onto fallen aspen leaves and pine needles and sit, rummaging through my backpack for my pen and colored pencils. Moving quickly, and with little thought, I do what I can to capture that shimmering moment. White and black tree trunks, blazing leaves, and then it is gone, leaving me, in my mind’s eye, with a perfect picture.

While sitting and looking at the aspen, I remember reading that the roots of all the aspen in a cluster are connected, and it’s really all one organism, each tree a clone of the other. A memory rises up and I can hear my older sister’s irritated voice chiding me many years earlier when we were running through the forest and I was holding her up, “For cryin’ out loud, Molly Jo, will you move it? A tree is just a tree.” Running behind her, I had straddled a fallen tree and was attempting to climb over it, when my attention was captured by the color of the lichen and the ants that were working in the sawdust below. I looked up to see her back as she disappeared into the brush, and as I scrambled off the log and ran after her, lest she leave me alone, I remember thinking, what a silly thing to say.

Relaxing now, I lie back with my hands under my head, looking at the sky and treetops and beyond the aspen and then, in a very tall tree just to the left, at the very top, spread across several branches, I spot the eagle’s nest! It must be about six feet across. My attention has been so focused on the aspen that I almost miss what I’ve been searching for. I scour the sky, trying to will that eagle to glide into its nest. However, I know an eagle covers a big territory in a day and I’m content that I’ve actually seen its nest.

After a while I head back toward the hotel, sometimes listening to the unfamiliar calls of the northern birds, then using my binoculars to spy them and read about them in the local bird book I bought. It has been a day of meditation.

I soon see the back of the hotel. Its tower, 11 stories high, and its outspread wings are magnificent, worthy of its grand setting. When I enter the lobby, I am very aware of my hiking outfit, but I fit right in with all the international travelers. I eagerly walk up the grand stairs to the mezzanine. As I step into the Rundle Room, the beauty just beyond those windows fills the room—and my spirit. I sit at “my” table, and start another sketch of the aspen, though their essence is escaping me. Still, I might capture them later. It’s no use now. The view of the golf course, the Bow River, and the mountains is too magnetic to focus on anything else. I just sit and absorb.

Although it appears I’m waiting for Jim to join me after his golf game, this is really precious time for me and I covet every minute of it. Sometimes I think I want to be jealous of the deep pleasure and satisfaction Jim gets from golf. I want to feel that golf is like his mistress. But here, right now, I understand that is just ego wanting to stir things up. The deep-down truth is that as much as he loves golf, I need to be alone in nature, to step out of the realm of time, to walk underwater beside the dipper, and to have no concept of any reality other than that moment.

Soon, as I’m gazing out the window, I watch a man in the distance walking in, pulling his golf bag. It takes a couple of minutes before I recognize Jim’s gait. He’s decided 18 holes is enough today. It seems strange now that at one time we both feared our different interests might eventually cause us to take separate paths. Instead, we seem to thrive by giving each other the freedom to do what we love when we’re apart. As I see him walking toward the hotel—toward me—I notice my pulse quickening.

As he enters the room, he stops at the bar and gets a vodka and tonic for himself and a lime and tonic for me, then comes over, clearly a happy man. I notice he’s taken the time to wash up and he looks fresh. Before he mentions his game, he asks me about my eagle. After visiting a bit, we return to the motorhome to rest and get cleaned up, then walk back to the hotel’s Rob Roy room for a very special dinner, lamb chops and a nice Bordeaux, then it’s time to go.

The sky is dusky blue as we drive up the canyon toward Lake Louise, where we’re camping. We are relaxed and quiet as we wind around a tight bend in the road, and just as we go around the curve, a great flurry of white feathers and brilliant yellow talons, a beak and a huge eye appear in front of our windshield! Jim slams on the brakes and swerves, barely missing it. With some effort he gains control of the motorhome and continues on. I have already popped out of my seat and run to the back window, just in time to see an enormous eagle, having just swooped down and grasped a squirrel in its talons, spread its wings, then soar across to the other side of the road and glide out over the canyon. I watch his tremendous wings disappear into the dusk as we drive around another curve.

I’ll bet if you’d asked Jim 10 years later what his golf score was on that day he could have told you, possibly hole by hole. As for me, all these years later, the exultant power of seeing that eagle’s talons and beak flash across our windshield, and then following his magnificent silhouette as it melded into the darkening sky remains a part of who I am today.