last night, for the life of me, I could not remember the name of my favorite cemetery in Florence.  I didn’t even guess the cardinal direction from the Arno correctly.  And to think, just a few years ago, like Fellini’s dark dreamers in la Voca della Luna, I practically lived there…San Miniato al Monte.

It was no where in my immediate memory.  Not the name anyway, just the climb, the colors, the stones, the breeze, the view.  I am deeply grateful for the journals I kept while I was there.  Especially my handheld moleskin filled with Italian vocabulary and directions and memories and notes about the nouns (people, places, and things) that I never wanted to forget.  But, like scattering ashes, in time, we forget. 

This spring, I met the writer Wendy Waters.  She talked to us about writing.  Not so much about how to do it, but why we do it.  How to get started and the value of doing so.  Write everything.  My journal group leader in the same program reminded us all that there are times that you cannot go back to.  Sometimes they are exactly the ones you want to go back to.  So by writing them, you can go back.  You immortalize your life against your dying memory.  I want to get back into my life, I want to get back into my writing.  It takes ritual to make ceremony.