time circles

The Two Books in the Trash: Part 2

| Flower Roberts

This post is a follow-up to an earlier post. THE LINK IS BELOW.

I am sorry for the delay caused by throwing the books away.
I had to order them on the internet because they were printed over sixty years ago.

Time Circles Take Their Time

Copies had to be ordered.

In this post I will discuss again my original reaction. A later post will be about my thoughts now after several years of wondering what the possible meaning of this sign could be? Was it from my mom or my dad? How did these two books get into that room? Landing in a wicker trashcan made them visible from the outside or they may never have been noticed. What a coincidence!

The answers are always in the details. Here I will describe each book and my initial reaction to it.

Front and back of the Kenneth J. Foreman
book about marriage vows.

I do wish I had the book jacket of the original book from the Enwood house, if there was one. This one is so much more interesting. This is from the third printing in 1953. The first printing was in 1950.

My initial reaction to this book was not pleasant. This book was a wedding gift from some friends of my maternal grandparents to my parents. The view of marriage in the 1950’s was very different from my views in 2023. I was not happy to have to revisit these old views of matrimony. I felt like I was being chastised and corrected from the grave. I was not sure if I wanted to be married at all at that point. I certainly was not about to backtrack to an antiquated version of marriage. This supposed sign actually made me furious.

Vietnam Era book by Thomas A. Dooley M.D.

The second book was also a propaganda powder keg. I was too young to fully understand Vietnam as the war unfolded and damaged the lives of thousands of people. I did understand tragedy and death. The books by and about Thomas A. Dooley tried to add a positive spin to the war story.

The Dooley story was carefully crafted to show how good Americans were and how evil the enemy was. The stories were fabricated or atleast slanted. Later information exposed that Dooley was actually a spy not just a selfless humanitarian. He got enemy information by locating his clinics in strategic locations. His crew did treat the ailments of locals and provide much needed nutrition packages. Every story has two sides. This one is tricky.

So now you know the names of the Two Books in the Trash.

I will follow this with my take on the meanings now. I have decided to treat each separately even though they ended up in the same trashcan. Stay tuned.

Be patient.

Remember, Time Circles Take Their Time.

FLOW

The Son in Santa Monica

| Flower Roberts

One of the happiest parts of my childhood was spent in Santa Monica, California. My father was sent there for some training, so we went with him. We lived in a magical place, the Embassy Hotel and Apartments. It is now called the Palihouse. This complex is Spanish colonial revival style with stucco walls and a red tile roof.

My sis and me in front of the Embassy.

The courtyard was full of exotic plants. We loved walking through this space that felt like a jungle. Our apartment was on the second floor with a balcony facing the ocean.

Our balcony is just above the wishing well.

My son went back there today. He stood on the steps where my sister and I stood over fifty years ago. He and his friend walked along that same path to the front door.

Time circle.
Same steps, different generation

I always dreamed of returning there, but having my son there seems even more thrilling. My heart is full of gratitude that both he and I got to be in this same magical space at different times. That is what time does. It circles back to what was loved most.

Son in Santa Monica

What a wonderful thing!

https://smconservancy.org/property/embassy-hotel-apartments/

FLOWER

Epiphanies in the Dark

| Flower Roberts

My brain wakes me up to tell me things. It has happened again tonight.


Something that I have been pondering on morphs into something else like a shape-shifting bucky ball.


I wake up seeing the obvious connections that were hidden. I finally see the trees in the forest. It is embarrasing what my awake mind misses when my asleep mind points it out.

Family tragedies that I thought of as linear and separate linked in my mind as ONE. I have mentioned these in a previous post, but instead of them following each in a linear, chronological fashion; they folded back on each other, like a time circle.

Great grandma’s husband was killed by a train on her farm.

Gran’s father was killed by a train on the family farm.

Ethel’s brother was killed by a train on the Pearson farm.

The same tragedy from three perspectives. Three interconnected women losing a piece of their lives.
Three dots connected by one man and disconnected by one tragedy.

Great grandma P: the widow

Reconnected by the responsibility in caring for the widow of a farmer hit by a train.
Tranferring the care of the farm to family men and the widow to family women.
The shape-shifting of a family due to a tragedy.

This 2D story finally became 3D in the middle of the night. Maybe this time-circle-trio will take form after all!


I am slow, but I do get there…in my sleep.

FLOW