WEEKLY SCRIBBLINGS #86
Rosemary has asked us to choose a journal entry and write a poem or prose about it. This took me to a journal from 2010, and the story of a family keepsake. Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, September 8, 2021
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THE COVERLET
My bookshelves contain over 30 journals that recount the days of my time here on earth. I randomly selected a journal page from a 2010 journal , marking a special moment I’m happy I recorded. My 90 plus year old aunt had given me a treasured blue and white woolen coverlet and its story is one to be remembered. She lovingly stroked it as she told me her grandmother spun the wool from sheep on their farm, dyed it and wove it on her loom. Loving stored away from one generation to the next, it’s now passed to me some 150 years after it was woven. I am honored to care for this treasured bit of family history until it’s time for me to pass it on to my daughter. A journal is a fine thing. But for the journal entry, the story of the coverlet might be lost.
Journals are bits of life set on paper, aren't they? Every time we reread them--the good and the bad--we (and others) remember we have lived... and will continue to live even after we are gone. I love that the coverlet story exists in ink. I wonder if your daughter will record the story too...
ReplyDeleteI actually intend to print this entry and leave a copy in the folds of the coverlet so that the story may also be passed down.
DeleteBev, this is a beautiful coverlet and its story is epic. How blessed you are to have it .. to have the privilege of passing it to Lori.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful treasure! I'm glad you captured the moment in your journal. Thank you so much for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteAh, you show us exactly why keeping journals is a Good Thing – one of a number of reasons, and a particularly useful one. It's a beautiful coverlet, with a lovely history.
ReplyDeleteA beautiful coverlet indeed.The history and spirit of the ancestors stay alive in these treasured objects. Bet those 30 journals have some interesting reading in them..
ReplyDeleteMy sister has it to "copy it on word processing for the computers," a journal kept my mother's grandparents' horse and wagon journey. They traveled to South Dakota from Wisconsin, included was the telling of the disappointing journey that first tried out Nebraska only to find all the farmable homesteads had been taken.
ReplyDeleteI have a copy I made if I could only find that I would read it again.
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What a marvelous keepsake. I so wish one of my ancestors had kept a journal. Guess that's too much to ask, since many of them signed their name with an X !
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