Words by Allyson

When I was in the seventh grade, I read Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons. The novel begins, 

"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure it out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy."

A brilliant opener that sent a pang through me the first time I read it. That's a feeling I've been chasing with each book I've picked up in the 20 years since I first experienced it. There's an immediate awareness that something profound will follow. That reading this book will be an experience to savor. 

Here's to the power of an opening line.

Five years ago, I went to my hometown to say goodbye.

My parents were selling the home I grew up in that summer, and I didn't know when I would ever be back in that town. While I had (and still have) no interest in living in Tallahassee again, I felt a strange paralysis. Like if my parents left, somehow Tally wasn't mine anymore. I wasn't allowed to claim it. 

When my parents picked me up at the airport for my farewell visit, my mother asked if there was anything I wanted to do. 

I wasn't sure how to answer. I told her that I wanted to spend time with her and Dad, a visit to Mashes Sands to swim in the Gulf, and that I wanted a Bradley's sausage. Bradley's Country Store is one of my favorite places in Tallahassee. We pulled up the next day for lunch and ordered sausage dogs and bought a bottle of Nehi. We sat on the front porch to eat. Afterward, we went back inside where Dad picked up a jar of some kind of preserves, and I picked out Sweet Vidalia Onion salad dressing to take back with me to Virginia.

I held onto that salad dressing and didn't open it for almost two years, and I teared up a little when I finally finished it (and not just because it's truly heavenly - I've never found anything that compares here).

Lately, I've been thinking about Tallahassee. Thinking about my life there. Thinking about how different my life is now, and how grateful I am for the place I grew up. 

For the town and the memories that will always be mine.

Last week, I went to see Penelope at the Signature Theatre in Shirlington. The show is an imagining of Penelope, Odysseus's wife, as she waits for her husband's return after 20 years at war. It was largely a one-woman show and a small band in a theatre with less than 100 seats. I loved every minute, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

Penelope tells of her husband's long absence, and the suitors in her home who ask her to leave Odysseus behind. She agrees to move on, but not until she finishes her weaving, and so she weaves all day and unravels her progress every night. The possibility of something new, something else and yet not quite able to or wanting to reach for it.

"I can weave whatever I want. Go wherever I want, as long as I never finish. As long as I always come back." 

The show perfectly articulated the hope and hopelessness of waiting. The optimisim and the frustration and the opportunity and the dignity and the isolation. Waiting because you have no choice. Waiting because you want to wait. Waiting with no end in sight.

"I could wait forever if I knew what forever was for."