I've been struggling to blog over the past couple of weeks. I wish I could explain it away by citing laziness, but that would be too easy. Instead, I will confess that I experience large tracts of time when the dementia simply takes over and lucid communication is impossible. I formulate expansive, ground-breaking blogs in my head while washing the dishes or enjoying long showers but when sitting at my desk faced with a blank computer screen and an annoyingly expectant cursor, I can think only of how narcissistic the blogging process is and how I have always rallied against the expression of private thought and opinion on such public forums.
This weekend, while trawling the internet for pretty much anything that could grab his flailing attention, my husband stumbled across a news story that he thought may pique my interest (being the undaunted romantic that I am) and so he e-mailed it on to me. The news story tells of how a Spokane man and his young family, while walking along the river bank last weekend, came across a century-old bottle that, yes, would you believe held, safely nestled in its confines, a well-traveled note.
Image stolen from The Spokesman Review with thanks.
When carefully extricated from its glass housing, this message penciled in 1913, did not spout love-torn poetry or a plee for help from a shipwrecked sailor, instead it yielded a simple note written to whomever should find it during its nautical adventures.
Rockford Wash.
March 30 1913
Dear Friend
Whoever finds this bottle please write me at Rockford within the next.....and let me know where it.... Put it in...... (much of the rest is illegible, but one gets the gist)
Emmet Presnell
According to subsequent research performed on the message and the information provided within it, Emmet Presnell, the scribe, was an ordinary cattle and wheat farmer who lived in the Spokane area. He never married nor had any children of his own. It is thought that he must have sent his 'message' around the age of 20, while herding cattle or wandering the banks of one of the subsidaries leading into the Spokane River.
Knowing about this man's life leaves me feeling slightly bereft and a lot lonely. The facts of his real-life story turn what was potentially a simple childish lark into something far more poignant and significant. One wonders how Emmet's life would have been altered if someone had indeed found his message all those years ago and written him?
And so it is that this simple story of a man, who with faith and conviction cast his voice into the unmitigated unknown, has allowed me to see the value and importance of using my own voice. My silences are no longer acceptable. I should be thankful for the resources at my disposal and revel in the freedom afforded me by modern technology - knowing that every day my 'messages in a blog' are eagerly read with avid attention and care.
For that I thank everyone of you.
