Woodson and Family Time

        While reading through the last parts of the novel, I began to notice more references to what I would call “ancestral” or “family time”. The novel follows Woodson’s childhood, which obviously includes her family. However, her family seems to be the center of the story—friends, culture, and writing remain important but perhaps not as central. In the poem “what’s left behind”, following her grandfather’s death, Woodson examines memory and how it intertwines with reality. Although her grandfather has passed, he hasn’t truly left the family. Woodson’s grandmother says to her: “You’ve got your daddy’s easy way…I watch you with/ your friends and see him all over again” (288). This poem struck me as an exploration of time and how it might distort or continue, carrying on those for whom time should’ve stopped. For Woodson’s grandfather, his time hasn’t truly stopped—he lives on, semi-eternally in his grandchildren, his daughter, and the other people who loved him most. Woodson’s grandmother notes this, saying: “Because you laugh just like him./ Two peas in a pod, you were” (289). 

Because of her grandfather’s living on in the people he loved, I wonder how this relates to our discussions of time earlier this semester. As we discussed with A Tale for the Time Being, time exists now—it is both present, past, and future. While seemingly Woodson’s grandfather might seem relegated to an untouchable past, his impact on his wife, daughter, and more obviously grandchildren, shows his occupation of the present, as well. Woodson carries her grandfather in her smile, her laughter, the way she acts with her friends. It almost seems, one could argue, like quantum time—her smile connects to her now passed on grandfather’s smile. Her mannerisms, which she acquired from her grandfather, seemingly tap into another time—when she saw her grandfather, when he was smiling and laughing—and even when she might not have seen him: laughing with his friends when he was younger. And thus, this poem in particular, but the rest of the novel as well, demonstrates the malleability of time and the impact of time on its main characters. 

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