This is what happens when both your parents die. You're left with large, elaborately framed photographs of yourself that you don't want. Hand colored studio portraits of you in a starched white dress, a shiny tow-headed bob. (That brief, inexplicable period of life when your hair was straight.) Another displays a heavy makeup job adorning your face, which grimaces at the photographer as he documented you in your mother's silk wedding dress that you'd wear the first time you married.  You look at these, bewildered by their presence and wondering what the hell to do with them. And then, the box.

That box. The one packed once upon a time by your now deceased mother. It's chock full of crumbling typing paper bearing all your bad drawings from fifth grade when you thought you were destined to be a clothing designer. Homemade Valentines and Easter cards telling your Mother and Daddy that you loved them very "musch." Letters from Camp Marietta in girly rounded handwriting. Purple ink. You loved your counselor. And, oddly, the cafeteria food. It was seventh grade and you were in a cabin with all the girls from your church. They were mean.

Another letter, tissue-thin paper from Israel, pleading with your parents that despite what your uncle wrote to them, you have not slept in but once. That time in London. Along with your older cousin. And you had not spent too much money. No "wildly" scarves, you wrote.

Stacks of crinkle-edged, small, square photographs of you and your sisters in Peter Pan collars and gingham print. You with goofy hair and uncomfortably frilly Easter dresses. Your mother modeling ridiculous hats she'd made when she'd fancied herself a milliner. Black-and-white treasures of stoic-faced high school seniors poised before the grand white columns of Taylors High. You squint, studying the rows and find the pretty, poised, slender girl with short, wavy hair. Your mother circa 1938.

There's the high school literary magazine of which you were editor. It bore an inordinate amount of your poetry. Bad poetry.

Near the bottom of the box is a small, red, jewel-toned faux leather book with gold embossing: "Autographs." You open in it. "Miss South Carolina, 1971." Who? And then the boy, whose signature you cannot make out: "Leisa, To a girl that acts Like a boy. and has a big house and yard. (and woods) Good Luck. David M??? 244-8145 Just in case P.S. I won't be sein any-more of my friends in the class because we're moving to Maulden S.C."

There's lots of old Jesus stuffed into that box. Journals in blue Bic, wildly-slanted cursive–confessions and regrets about not "living right" and "sins."

The manilla folder of notes made you cry. Your 11th grade English teacher. He wrote in red cursive catty-corner of every page. He was fresh from Clemson University then. He was passionate about writing. And so were you. And you had a crush on him. After that year, he left the classroom to become a priest. And then you heard he was gay. And then you heard he'd died. But the passion for writing you shared, the encouragement, the memories of him crouching beside your desk to help you with a turn of phrase while your classmates rolled their eyes. Over and over he wrote in those red-ink cursive, catty-corner notes that you needed to at least minor in English or study journalism in college. "Please," he wrote….

There were painful memories, stowed in that box, too. The Fine Arts Center teacher that wasn't so encouraging. But your memory rebounds with recollections of the other art teacher who countered the other teacher's bitchiness and counseled you through your adolescent pain over your parents saying you were wasting your time studying art. At 50+ now, you know that you've still really not made peace with the visual artist within. Yet.

Maybe that box is opening back time. A revisit and a chance to write and draw a new story going forward. I think it so….Hello second half of Life. Good bye to the past that bound. Come-along that and those which nurtured me. This time: no holds barred….