Grandma, revisited.

As my mother is here, and as we're closer than ever, and as we are still remembering, discussing, memorializing my grandmother, it's time to post this poem.  I wrote it while I was making her meatball recipe for my favorite cousin.  He was the first family - other than my mother - that I've seen since she passed away, and it was healing and it was wonderful.  She left so much good behind her, it's almost hard being sad.

Grandma

I know things my grandmother knows.

I know the icy plunge of warm hands into cold meat, squeezing and turning the bread, the eggs, the cheese.

I know that the 26th day of the month brings a celebration of love.

I know the pain, and the joy, of newborn babies: a son, a daughter, a son.

I have put the knot in the yellow scarf.

I have tied the bow of the pink apron over my back.

I have loved a good man.

I have fastened the pearls.

I have stood over the stove as she did, frying dough and tossing into waiting little hands: my son, my daughter, my son.

I know love. Love from the family that made me, and love from the family I made.

I know the things that my grandmother knows.      

R.I.P. Davy Jones

I started this blog in the first place because I missed Jani Lane so much.  Yeah, you read that right.  I didn't want to talk in a public place about my children, my work, or my writing.  I have many loves and hobbies, and despite years of message boards, none of these interests had ever called me to blog.  When Jani died I was compelled.  I knew no one who loved him as I did, and I thought that even if I were the tree falling in a lonely forest, I could make a sound.  I thought that having a public way to express my grief would help, and it did.

Before there was Jani, there was the Monkees.  Their 20th anniversary hit me right at the cusp of adolescence, in all its obsessive glory.  There were pictures in my locker, scrapbooks of lyrics, hours of fantasy with a very groovy soundtrack.  I still have the scrapbook, the music, and a replica of the necklace Davy Jones wore in the daydream believer video.  I have been wearing it for the past week.

I, like most, think that Davy died too young.  But, he did get to see his music redeemed (which is something Jani Lane will never get to do).  He did get good write-ups in Rolling Stone; his music is understood, and loved, now.  Before the fickle world gave in to the Monkees' charms, many of their fans were already there, and I was one of them. 

My children are familiar with the songs "Pillow Time," "Daydream Believer," "Sometime in the Morning," "I Wanna Be Free," and "As We Go Along," because I have sung them as lullabies since they were born.  As I said in my first post here about Jani, that's maybe the best gift I can give back.  It's the least I can do after Davy, unknowlingly, led me through my troubles with song, and led me to this very moment.

Wordworth said, hundreds of years ago,
"What we have loved,
Others will love, and we will teach them how". Rest in Peace Davy, for we will keep you alive.

Wear your pink wig.

     My three kids are very small. Small enough that our lessons are still one way: I teach them things, and they absorb them like little sponges. It's occurred to me that one day, these lessons will start to go the other way, that I will also learn from them. I figured it would be through what they get at school, like the diameter of Jupiter or something. I figured these lessons would be academic.

      I'm not the kind of person who goes looking for lessons babies can teach. Yes, they cry it out and get over it; yes, they prioritize play. Yes, their bodies and minds are flexible. Yes, they have fewer prejudices. But they also have nothing else to do all day, and minimal life experience.  It's obvious.  That said, there are the moments when I look at one of my small children and think, I could take a page from that book.  And I do, for a while, and then I forget that I had.

     I don't know by what standards I'm a snappy dresser, but by any standard, I'm a flashy one.  I dress to stand out, with bright colors and funky shoes.  Now that I'm a mother, turning heads seems like one-of-those-things-you-shouldn't-do.  Women get to a certain age, and it seems, are supposed to become autumnal.  Neutrals only, please.

     My daughter hasn't learned this lesson yet; of course not; she's 5.  She wears whatever the hell she wants, and people think it's adorable.  Pants with skirts, mismatched prints, two different shoes...you name it, she's done it.  It doesn't even occur to her she shouldn't.  And every time she does (which is nearly every day) I have one of those moments, those I-could-learn-from-this moments. 

     Until this one time.  She's been begging for a pink wig and the last time we were out shopping, what do you know.  She wore it all the way home (and proceeded to tell me proudly she was finally a blonde).  Anyway, the day of ballet class came, and the pink wig emerged.  I was surprised she wanted to wear it, but hey, in her eyes it's the most glamorous thing she owns.  So on it went.

     That wig - which makes her hot and itchy most of the time - did not come off the whole class.  She fussed with it a few times, and otherwise, treated it like any other permanent body part.  I overheard girls by the studio window telling their moms, "Look!  That girl has pink hair!"  "Cool!" said the moms, and kept on walking.  No one thought she was a nut and, if they had, she wouldn't have noticed.  She was too busy being glamorous. 

     I know there are boundaries.  I know that we have impressions to make.  I know that sometimes we have to act our age.  But most of the time, we don't.  This was one time my girl taught me a lesson and it stuck.  I have a pink wig too - it's in the Halloween bin.  But it's the metaphor that matters.  My pink wig might be my knee-high sneakers.  It might be my big eye makeup.  It might be my saucy attitude.  Not every day; she knows that much.  Some days are right for the pink wig.

 

Wear your pink wig.  Sometimes.  As long as it's not never.