Sharpening Memories

I refuse to live my life looking back. Regrets are not in my nature, as I truly believe--and as we learned this week, as long as you believe something hard enough, it is indeed a fact--that everything that has happened in my life has led me to become this person in this place. And I'm good with that.

Except---

Lately I have found myself wishing that I'd taken my grandfather's pencil sharpener after he passed away.

It was an old-fashioned rotary style pencil sharpener that was mounted to a wall or rather a beam--as he never got around to finishing the walls--in his garage.

When I'd get stuck on a problem or a sentence, I'd decide my pencil needed to be sharpened and head to Grandpa's garage. It was always open during the day. 

As I grew up next door to my grandparents, it wasn't that far of a jaunt. 

Once I'd escaped whatever was niggling me--whether it was family, homework, or boredom, I'd sharpen my pencil to a sharp point and then linger in the garage. I'd look up into the rafters wondering what was stashed out of sight or examine the lead shavings littered around Grandpa's work bench after he'd made fishing weights. In the summer, I'd peer out the window over his work counter and watch birds in the garden or scampering squirrels in the birch tree.

Usually, I only had a few moments of solitude and daydreaming before one of my sisters appeared to drag me back to reality.

I got some Snoopy pencils in Target's Spot shop that need sharpened and I really wish I'd thought to take Grandpa's pencil sharpener.