dix-neuf.

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"MARGEAUX, ARE YOU sure you can't do this in your room?" Jack asks, his lips curved downward in a frown as he stares at my materials that have taken up the majority of the coffee table where his feet ache to extend and rest.

It's just the two of us in the apartment; the quiet something of a rarity during hockey season. During the season, I feel that my brother is frequently surrounded by his teammates, particularly those who play on his line. These days, he, Bracken, and Harry—much to my dismay—are inseparable. Bracken and Wheeler are welcome additions, though, not necessarily exclusively on the same line as my brother and his fellow offensive line. To my point, Jack and I aren't frequently alone. Even in the unwonted moments of our separation from his team, usually we are prevented from complete isolation by the company of Asher. Today, though, it appears that our stars have aligned in that his teammates are occupied elsewhere and my boyfriend is stuck at a cross country meet.

"Yes," I emphasize dramatically, turning to give my brother a pointed look. He may be older, and he may be the leader of the two of us, but it has always been clear which one of us wears the pants. Certainly right now this is something that is not up for question. "How often do we have time for just the two of us?" I've almost always lived with my brother. That being said, as we grow older and our lives continue to grow more defined, I've come to find that our paths grow increasingly more divided.

Jack grumbles something incoherent behind me, but doesn't issue any further complaints in regard to the amount of space that I am consuming. Coaxed from my room by the promise of my brother's company, I'd taken my art supplies and spread them out along the space of our living room's coffee table.

Growing up, I used my mother's journals as a way to get to know the elusive woman I knew as nothing more than a ghost. In them, I found the truest form of her own identity as well as my introduction to her native French language which would soon become my own secondary language. Her journals provided me with a space where I got to know the woman who my mother was before motherhood and my father—the girl that she was growing up in France. In them, she was unrestrained and truthful. I found something admirable in that; something that I myself wanted to replicate. Unfortunately, I was not regimented enough in a daily routine to indulge in the habit of daily journaling. Instead, I found myself more drawn to the visual and interactive nature of scrapbooking.

Whereas my mother's life is told through her various different journals, my own is documented through my many different scrapbooks. As an educator, I am well familiar with Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences; the theory that suggests that different modalities of presenting information appeal to different people. From this theory we get the notion of learning by doing, hearing, seeing, talking, interacting... what have you. Personally, I find myself more of a person who learns by seeing and creating. Hence, my infatuation with scrapbooking.

Different pages and spreads exhibit different periods of my life: my elementary school years, the regrettable fads from middle school, high school, college, various vacations, and more. Presently, I find myself spread out in the living room designing a two-page spread highlighting the first meeting of the year of our school's French club. For the occasion, I had used my mother's recipe for homemade rose and raspberry macarons. The pink coloring of each flavor had made them appear rather inviting to look at, and even better tasting.

As a club, we had taken a couple of pictures together, and even talked about trying to raise the money to fund a club trip to France. Privately, I remained rather un-optimistic about the practicalities of such, considering that we've been talking about doing such for years now and nothing has ever come to fruition. Regardless, it doesn't hurt to be hopeful for such things.

Sitting in my living room now, I have a variety of scrapbooking paper spread out in front of me, the printed pictures, a map of France that I had laying around from my first visit there, and the recipe for the macarons. I've always found scrapbooking as a sort of jigsaw; a matter of making things fit where they best belong. Laying each article out, I am careful not to paste anything before I am ready. "Did you already practice today?" I ask, breaking the silence that had taken over our living room.

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