I maintain it cannot be
this baby girl hovers over me?
In clinical proof we’re head to head
but the photographer shoots
our feet instead.
Begrudged thanks to sneaky photographer, S.W. Berg.
Category Archives: Grandmother
Disconnections: August 20.18
The chase and the catch, continued from yesterday.
You see “In search of story” at the top of my blog. For me, trying to write a story is like trying to enjoy a root canal. But I listen to others in an effort to learn about story. And this is what bothers me about the machines: they yield the tidy catch, thereby rendering the messy chase obsolete and attendant stories extinct.
My Grandma Mauck and her siblings would fight to the verbal death about who was born when. With them, it was all about the chase. If they’d had Smartphones to consult, our Thanksgivings might have been quieter, but I wouldn’t have learned about their internecine wars and I’d have been deluded into thinking all my relatives were rational.
My Grandma O’Hern would celebrate summer, no matter how icky hot, with a mountain of pierogi; family and chairs would appear magically and morph into a small city around the table. If they’d had iPads, would I have heard the accounts of how Baby Edna had to walk because Grandpa’s hootch rode in the baby carriage?
How can I hope to develop any story-telling abilities at this point in my life when people are nose-dived into their gadgets, and mind only the catch?
It is arguable that if I don’t know how to tell a story by now I never will. I guess I am stuck in my own messy chase, trying to catch the skill of story-telling, dodging the thumbs of the world.
Disconnections: July 4.18
In an amazing, death-defying feat of coordination and grace, I balanced colander and bowl and camera as I cleaned beans yesterday evening on the swing. There was a hope of incoming storm — how we need the rain — and as I sat there I felt the change: the breeze rose almost to the level of wind, the underbellies of leaves rolled upward, and a blessed cool-down settled on a hot world.
The colander belonged to my Grandma O’Hern. She too cleaned beans in it. In her cotton summer housedresses, shoulder-to knee apron, Grandma shoes, and, yes, hairnet, she was always cleaning something. Except when chores were done and she’d sit on her swing on her screened porch. On my luckiest days, I sat next to her.
She was the daughter of immigrants. Both my grandmas were daughters of immigrants. Neither finished grade school. I sat for a long time yesterday evening looking at that colander. Of course I was no longer on that deck but was in her kitchen, on her swing.
The 4th of July finds me very introspective this year. From sea to shining sea one vast ad-hominem attack. Purple-mountained alternative facts. Amber waves of tweets. A fruited plain of party lines.
I guess the colander challenged me to fly the flag today for the right reasons.
It never did rain last night; some things we cannot influence. I choose to think the flag says there are some things we CAN influence.
Disconnections: June 6.18
Summer afflicts me with memories.
Like family vacation. A surfeit of togetherness. Dad’s mother, our beloved Grandma O’Hern, sat between my brother and me in the back seat. Poor Grandma. My brother loved confinement as much as I did and we were not anyone’s first choice of traveling companions.
Our expeditions almost always started with a new comic book, a thing of beauty and a joy for…well…five minutes. After that the only thing it was good for was rolling into a tube and clobbering someone. (But that was only because he clobbered me first.)
There were, of course, no such things as seat belts. We could kneel in the back seat and look out the back window, trying to see if where we’d been were any more interesting than where we were. Nope.
Rolling the windows down (aka air conditioning) had nothing to do with pushing a button and everything to do with grabbing a knob and turning for dear life. Reverse to roll back up. A life skill we’d already acquired. Boring.
The view from the back seat had greatly to do with the back of my mom’s head and the back of my dad’s head. And sameness out the windows. Devoutly did we pray for Burma Shave signs, when there would be respite from sameness. At the end we’d all shout out “Burma Shave!” and then I’d lapse back into a comatose state of childhood on hold.
There were “guessing games,” of course. And singing. And coloring books. For some reason, though, my parents got touchy about melted crayons under the seat. Was it our fault the summer sun was hot?
The years distort, I know, but I’m fairly sure that’s my dad’s voice asking “Are we there yet?”
Connections: February 20.18
Yesterday it happened
though I was adamantly opposed;
inevitability
didn’t make me more composed.
I argued, put my foot down,
but the truth was right out there:
my granddaughter was taller
by a hundredth of a hair.
Connections: December 23.17
A plate of Christmas cookies
is so much more than that
it’s a serving of family history
forebears’ concordat
it’s Grandma’s recipe card
in her distinctive hand
it’s Mom’s poinsettia plate
generational ampersand
connecting younger fingers
with those gone long before
sweet and sticky memories
toothsome family lore.
Connections: December 12.17
My last two kitchens had islands
the ultimate luxury
the kitchen I live with now
is bestowed more modestly.
So I follow the ways of my grandmas
and my mother, apt and able,
enlisting our four-legged friend,
the enduring kitchen table.
But I have a homey bauble
with which they weren’t stuck
a low-hanging ceiling lamp
which I cannot remember to duck.
Hovering over the table
at just the exact right spot
it clunks against my head
and elicits descriptive bon mot.
Some day I’ll explain to my neighbors
the reverberant mystery
the gong heard ’round the ‘hood
it isn’t Big Ben — it’s me.
Yes, I know, dear reader. I took liberties with my French. It was too awful not to use.
