In 2021, I hope to post something each day, quoting from and/or inspired by a letter or document related to my family.
My husband and I both grew up in San Francisco and moved back “home” in 2015. Revisiting and rediscovering places both familiar and new has been a rich and sometimes disorienting experience. Particularly with each passing year as people we love are no longer with us. I often go past a place and think about being there in the 1960s, 1970s, all the way to the present day. About the people I was with who are now ghosts. About the person I once was.
Exploring my family papers and history by looking at a particular day of the year feels similar – what was going on in the world, in my family in 1886? 1902? 1918? 1939? 1946?... Layers of memory and layers of meaning.