Babu does not always remember the stories that go along with her 1935 diary entries but sharing these pieces with her is still rewarding. She surprises me with remembering some details from then and at other times she will launch into stories some related to what’s in the entry she is reading and some not….
Month: December 2015
The Second Week of 1935
She continues to work on her theme which has no title and goes to a group meeting for something called the Falcons. Adam says that might have something to do with exercise? But I really don’t think so! I smell the next research project coming up! She feels she got no chance at auditions for the…
The Poli
Babu always complains about her memory and brain capacity these days. I will never understand until I am much older but I sympathize. “Never get old.” Babu’s mother always told her that and now she tells it to me. However, this woman is amazing for 97! She remembers so many details as we go through…
Like it was Yesterday
After transcribing the first week I typed her passages in large font and brought them to Babu for her to read. As she’s always done, she reads out loud to me in a slow, deliberate voice, looking up often, sometimes off into the distance and sometimes at me. “Drobey…he lived in the same four family…
Excerpt #1
Saturday January 5, 1935 “We” went sliding tonight and I enjoyed myself. Drobey doesn’t seem to be afraid of me anymore. He says “How about letting me read your 1934 diary. I shouldn’t want him to because I was silly about him, but that’s all over now. Sophie’s permanent came out wonderfully.
The First week of 1935
1935. I’m stunned and my hands are as careful as they’ve ever been with any item but I still know I’m such a klutz, so they shake imperceptibly. My husband and I look at each other in amazement because she was going to be 17 that year. I read the first passage and ask:…
This journey…
I turn every page eagerly yet extremely cautiously, looking for what happens next. The cover has a tendency to shed tiny painful black flecks whenever handled in anything but a tender way. The blue bleeding ink, written in cursive, is consistent for as many pages as I had read or peaked ahead to and it…
transcribingmemory 