2015년 7월 5일 (일요일)
글쓰기를 좋아하는 딸의 잔르는 주로 미스터리, 픽션, 오핀이언 이다. 나는 거의 에세이를 쓴다. 잔르는 다르지만 책읽기와 글쓰기는 둘다 좋아한다. 이 공통 취미를 살려서 이번여름에 딸과 같이 우리사는 도시에 대해 글을 쓰는 프로젝트를 하고 있다. 우선 우리의 삶에 관련이 있던 동네 부터 시작하였다.
우리가족과 가장 인연이 깊은 동네에 딸과 같이 걸으면서 가족 역사를 이야기 해주었다. 이 동네에 대한 딸의 마음에 들어온 생각들이다, 톤이 거의 엄마와 비슷함을 느낀다.
Happy belated 4th of July!
Winchester
My childhood memories are overwhelmingly pleasant ones, the sort that encapsulate a past of warmth and love. Long before I lived in Lancaster, Winchester was a prominent town in my life. My grandparents had owned a cozy, well-loved home there for years. When my sisters and I were quite young, my parents often
asked my grandmother and grandfather to look after us while my parents went off
to work. My grandparents, of course, said yes. They took us to the playground
on one end of the road on a nearly-daily basis; the organic grocery store in
the opposite direction was one of my sisters’ favorite places to visit, too. My
grandparents always made sure my sisters and I were well-fed and taken care of
while we were in their care, no matter how tiresome it must have been to look
after four rambunctious young girls with endless reserves of energy.
Now that I have grown, I realize that my grandparents are strict and focused people. They had to be, in order to survive and succeed within the context of a strange new country. And yet I never perceived them as such when I was young. The fact that they were able to cast aside their exacting demands when it came to their grandchildren tells me that they have always loved us and cared for us deeply. I associate the town of Winchester with this loving, caring memory of my grandparents, so I think it’s fair to say that Winchester holds a very special spot in my heart.
What’s more is that Winchester was significant to my family long before my birth. “Look,” my mother said, excitedly pointing out the Winchester Hospital on one side of the street, and a Seventh-day Adventist church. “That hospital is where your grandmother works… and that’s where I got my first job, when I was just a few years younger than you. And that church is where your father and I got married!”
This was news to me. I had attended this church for summer children’s programs as a young girl; though I had not revisited it in years, each minor detail—its cracked concrete steps, its tiny parking lot to the side, its every corner and edge—felt welcome and familiar as my mother and I walked around it. And yet I had not known that this was where my parents were wed. How many places do I think I know, I thought that I don’t actually know at all?
When both my mother and I felt we had walked in circles around the hospital and church long enough to reestablish the mental images we had of these locations in our heads, we started to drive around the neighborhood. Though we drove in silence, my mind was far from still, and I’m sure the same was true for my mother as well. Winchester was so full of memories for both of us; it was impossible to pass through it without stumbling across a good chunk of them.
On our way out of the town, my mother and I drove past the Winchester train station. Here was a physical entity linking this town to Lancaster, a stronger and more tangible force than the mere memories binding the two together in my mind. This was the train my grandparents would have taken to and from work, back when they had first come to America, back when they had lived in Lancaster and first found work at the Winchester Hospital.
When we drove past the train station, I saw passengers were getting ready for the incoming train to pull up and bring them to their destinations. I could imagine my beloved grandmother and grandfather jostling for position among them, waiting to board that train.
