Don’t Miss A Memory | #makeamemory

You can’t recover memories of a missing event. That’s a fallacy. – Betty Hill

Do buildings record memory? I stared down Miss Ethel’s side porch at Hope Farm, the path leading to shelter. Three battered nights. Forty-five miles of walking. I couldn’t ratchet pulverized legs onto a bench, though I wished muscles could be silenced with a few squirts of oil or turns of a wrench.

To distract myself from pain, I listened to the house. Built in 1774 to English standards. Altered in 1789 to suit the appetites of a Spanish governor. If I put my ear against clapboard siding, would I hear General James Wilkinson’s hoot of laughter as he shook down the Spanish?

“Another 5,000, and I’ll tell you what President Washington intends for geographical expansion. For 10,000, I’ll toss in a complete map of planned American fortresses west of Appalachia. Hell, you pay me enough, and I’ll turn the territories of Kentucky and Tennessee into a separate country….loyal only to the Spanish crown.”

Cigar smoke tickled my nose as Wilkinson’s traitorous diatribe merged with the boom of a million crickets. My novel’s villain visited the house, occupied my spot.

More than two hundred years ago, he might’ve taken the piazza’s long view. Through billowing smoke, he filed another needle of guilt from his conscience, covered any hesitation with bravado. His boot steps ricocheted along the back porch as he slipped down the back stair, mounted his horse, and galloped toward the river to float back to New Orleans, to his men.

Did the house whisper a missing event? Or a make-believe episode in the life of America’s second general in charge of the United States Army?

I lifted my camera to capture the disruption of air, the ringing of his steps, the wisp of tobacco.

Wood and paint. Furniture and flora. Three days of walking even pulverized my brain.

I gimped down the open corridor to our room and wrapped myself in the dust of over two hundred years of history. Grateful I decided not to miss one of my life’s biggest events.

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Photograph Credit: Andra Watkins

This is part of a series of pictures about making memories. If you liked the story why not share it with your friends? Let’s meet on Facebook or Twitter. If you prefer pictures you will surely like my Instagram. I’ve collected inspirational things and more on Pinterest! Any comments? Write them below!