my grandmother said something funny today while we were playing yet another game of poker.
"i've never heard that before" i said
"i got if from your mom" she answered. '"she used to always say' with my luck, when my ship comes in, i'll be at the airport"
Monday, January 12, 2009
Christmas
i woke up christmas day morning in an empty house. well, empty of people. all night one of the cats slept with me, which was very comforting.
the elvis presley song 'blue christmas' is in my head, like someone put it on the record player as soon as my eyes opened up.
the elvis presley song 'blue christmas' is in my head, like someone put it on the record player as soon as my eyes opened up.
christmas eve
christmas eve:
i plugged the tree in while i wrapped presents. it was after midnight. the neighbors had a very loud party. there were colored lights pouring out onto the street like their living room was a disco. i heard a d.j. talking in spanish over salsa music for maybe 2 hours. a big pre-christmas party, i guess.
i had just retuned home to feed the cats and wrap gifts and attempt to pack. i went down to newark, de, which is where i spent the majority of christmases in my life. not to see my mom, but i passed the neighborhood that was home for almost 15 years. about a minute up the road from where my mom once lived is where the haines have a house. i've never spent any holidays with them. they knew my mom for about 25 years, almost as long as i knew her. they've known me that long as well. their home is very cozy. when i arrived they'd just opened a big bay window in their living room to let out some of the heat from the wood stove they had going. a big, natural tree stood in the center of the room, covered in ornaments. rose, the mom of the family, had been giving her 2 daughters ornaments every year, a tradition my mom started when i was maybe a teenager. right now i've no idea where any of the ornaments are. chances are they got carefully packed up and put into storage when my mom cleaned out my room in preparation for them selling the house that i used to go home to. this is before she got sick, when they were getting ready to fully relocate to maryland last summer.
at the haines i ate dinner with them and played christmas carols out of big books of music. there was singing, not me, i play the flute. the one daughter, elizabeth made cookies from cookie dough---mom and i used to do this. they smell the same as they did when i was 8 years old. i guess holidays are a way to organize memories from your life---rituals act as mile markers. my memory is terrible otherwise. but here i am thinking of all these things that happened on repeat every winter--cookies, tree ( though it changed from real to plastic at some point in my teens ) the ornaments that i made in first grade mixed in with nicer ones mom collected over the years.
they were so very nice to me. they don't act like it's the family plus one, they act like i've always been there. i guess it helps they've known me so long, and i have spent a lot of time at their house---even if most of that time was 15 years ago and before. the two daughters, whom i grew up with, looked like how i remember, only taller and more like women than girls. but they still laugh the same, act goofy and treat me like nothing has changed in all this time. this is comforting. not too much lately has felt familiar.
i wonder what it's like to grow up in a family like theirs--it's really all 4 of them, every year for the holidays? and it's always been like that? and they all get along pretty well. it seems pretty amazing, how relaxed it all is, and how sweet they are to each other while still very much doing their own thing. i'm glad to know families like this exist. they come together and share music, play with the dogs and cats. seems like a good balance of things.
they encourage me to stay and stay.
"you have to go back tonight?" they say
i plugged the tree in while i wrapped presents. it was after midnight. the neighbors had a very loud party. there were colored lights pouring out onto the street like their living room was a disco. i heard a d.j. talking in spanish over salsa music for maybe 2 hours. a big pre-christmas party, i guess.
i had just retuned home to feed the cats and wrap gifts and attempt to pack. i went down to newark, de, which is where i spent the majority of christmases in my life. not to see my mom, but i passed the neighborhood that was home for almost 15 years. about a minute up the road from where my mom once lived is where the haines have a house. i've never spent any holidays with them. they knew my mom for about 25 years, almost as long as i knew her. they've known me that long as well. their home is very cozy. when i arrived they'd just opened a big bay window in their living room to let out some of the heat from the wood stove they had going. a big, natural tree stood in the center of the room, covered in ornaments. rose, the mom of the family, had been giving her 2 daughters ornaments every year, a tradition my mom started when i was maybe a teenager. right now i've no idea where any of the ornaments are. chances are they got carefully packed up and put into storage when my mom cleaned out my room in preparation for them selling the house that i used to go home to. this is before she got sick, when they were getting ready to fully relocate to maryland last summer.
at the haines i ate dinner with them and played christmas carols out of big books of music. there was singing, not me, i play the flute. the one daughter, elizabeth made cookies from cookie dough---mom and i used to do this. they smell the same as they did when i was 8 years old. i guess holidays are a way to organize memories from your life---rituals act as mile markers. my memory is terrible otherwise. but here i am thinking of all these things that happened on repeat every winter--cookies, tree ( though it changed from real to plastic at some point in my teens ) the ornaments that i made in first grade mixed in with nicer ones mom collected over the years.
they were so very nice to me. they don't act like it's the family plus one, they act like i've always been there. i guess it helps they've known me so long, and i have spent a lot of time at their house---even if most of that time was 15 years ago and before. the two daughters, whom i grew up with, looked like how i remember, only taller and more like women than girls. but they still laugh the same, act goofy and treat me like nothing has changed in all this time. this is comforting. not too much lately has felt familiar.
i wonder what it's like to grow up in a family like theirs--it's really all 4 of them, every year for the holidays? and it's always been like that? and they all get along pretty well. it seems pretty amazing, how relaxed it all is, and how sweet they are to each other while still very much doing their own thing. i'm glad to know families like this exist. they come together and share music, play with the dogs and cats. seems like a good balance of things.
they encourage me to stay and stay.
"you have to go back tonight?" they say
Saturday, December 13, 2008
More decisions
I'm trying to decide what to do for Christmas this year. I realize I never have had to think about it before. There was one year when I was about 9 I went to visit my dad. About 4 years ago I went by myself to visit my grandparents. These are the only Christmases I've ever spent apart from you.
I have options this year---a few friends say I can join them and their families. I could go be an observer of other people's traditions and dynamics. My stepdad is having his dad over for dinner, and my stepsister will be around too. For years and years it was them and I and you. I don't know how much they feel like my family with you gone.
My grandparents say I should come visit them. They have pictures of you everywhere, and more stories than I've even heard. It might be nice--their home is the only place that has stayed the same since I was born. But they aren't you and they aren't family the way you always were.
You should be here. To go look at lights, to buy too many gifts for me, to watch a movie in your armchair, to get up early with your dad and have coffee before the sun is up, to wrap all the gifts so neatly, to know exactly what to get everyone, to tell me what to do for my stepdad, to put up my stocking filled with small practical things--chapstick, nice pens, etc, to sing next to me at the UU Christmas Eve church service. I never thought of us as having lots of holiday traditions or this time of year being a big deal. It feels more so with you being gone, and seeing a completeness in other people's families outside of me. I am reminded of friends who don't visit family at all, who have other traditions, who have made their own families, who don't celebrate any holiday this time of year. I wonder what might become a new tradition, if any. Or what to do in place of this time that will never be how it was. I know this year doesn't have to represent what will come forever and ever. I know no matter where I am, it won't be the same or feel as right as being with you.
I have options this year---a few friends say I can join them and their families. I could go be an observer of other people's traditions and dynamics. My stepdad is having his dad over for dinner, and my stepsister will be around too. For years and years it was them and I and you. I don't know how much they feel like my family with you gone.
My grandparents say I should come visit them. They have pictures of you everywhere, and more stories than I've even heard. It might be nice--their home is the only place that has stayed the same since I was born. But they aren't you and they aren't family the way you always were.
You should be here. To go look at lights, to buy too many gifts for me, to watch a movie in your armchair, to get up early with your dad and have coffee before the sun is up, to wrap all the gifts so neatly, to know exactly what to get everyone, to tell me what to do for my stepdad, to put up my stocking filled with small practical things--chapstick, nice pens, etc, to sing next to me at the UU Christmas Eve church service. I never thought of us as having lots of holiday traditions or this time of year being a big deal. It feels more so with you being gone, and seeing a completeness in other people's families outside of me. I am reminded of friends who don't visit family at all, who have other traditions, who have made their own families, who don't celebrate any holiday this time of year. I wonder what might become a new tradition, if any. Or what to do in place of this time that will never be how it was. I know this year doesn't have to represent what will come forever and ever. I know no matter where I am, it won't be the same or feel as right as being with you.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
11-24-08 words
it started last week at your service. a friend of yours stood up during the quaker style part at the end and referred to you as an activist. i'd never heard anyone use that language with you before.
he quoted johnny cash, his explanation for why he chose to dress in black (" " )
to be looking out for the little guy. your friend saw you this way.
my ex called you a language activist. that makes sense. you broke things down into tiny pieces, seeing the connections on all levels.
today i look through your books in your office and there is almost a whole shelf on black english/ ebonics/ education issues for african american students.
it occurs to me how much you always made a point of standing up for black english and how it was a legitamate dialect, with its own rules and that it wasnt that people were speaking 'incorrect english' as was often said but that the world was the one with the problem of not recognizing it because it wasn't academic english. how did you get interested in this? it has nothing to do with you or anyone you ever knew too closely, i think. but you learned from your students, friends of mine, friends of friends. you were interested in the ways people spoke , even the ones who dont' get a real voice in this country. i feel so proud of you, to know you, to come from you. i take a book about gender and grammar. i see on your shelves my book from my woman studies class. you were a strong feminist, didn't ever skip a beat with my queer and later trans identities. you were interestted in the way inner city kids talked and took that as seriously as any of the books you had to read for your dissertation. eric wants to keep some of your membership things going---planned parenthood, the southern poverry law project. you were into buying from catalogs that donated money to social change or envirnonmental organizations. i feel like looking out for others/ hte larger good was jus so muc of what you did, never ever witht the intention of getting any praise or even ackowlgenment .
they say of you at the service how you were driven to make things btter everyerehw you went. sometimes this played out as perfectionismn or criticsism of others ways of doing things, but mostly it played out in you serving others and i feel really proud that you were the person i called mom.
he quoted johnny cash, his explanation for why he chose to dress in black (" " )
to be looking out for the little guy. your friend saw you this way.
my ex called you a language activist. that makes sense. you broke things down into tiny pieces, seeing the connections on all levels.
today i look through your books in your office and there is almost a whole shelf on black english/ ebonics/ education issues for african american students.
it occurs to me how much you always made a point of standing up for black english and how it was a legitamate dialect, with its own rules and that it wasnt that people were speaking 'incorrect english' as was often said but that the world was the one with the problem of not recognizing it because it wasn't academic english. how did you get interested in this? it has nothing to do with you or anyone you ever knew too closely, i think. but you learned from your students, friends of mine, friends of friends. you were interested in the ways people spoke , even the ones who dont' get a real voice in this country. i feel so proud of you, to know you, to come from you. i take a book about gender and grammar. i see on your shelves my book from my woman studies class. you were a strong feminist, didn't ever skip a beat with my queer and later trans identities. you were interestted in the way inner city kids talked and took that as seriously as any of the books you had to read for your dissertation. eric wants to keep some of your membership things going---planned parenthood, the southern poverry law project. you were into buying from catalogs that donated money to social change or envirnonmental organizations. i feel like looking out for others/ hte larger good was jus so muc of what you did, never ever witht the intention of getting any praise or even ackowlgenment .
they say of you at the service how you were driven to make things btter everyerehw you went. sometimes this played out as perfectionismn or criticsism of others ways of doing things, but mostly it played out in you serving others and i feel really proud that you were the person i called mom.
11-24-08 vitamins
you were always so private. i feel like a strange spy looking through your emails and your drawers.
i arrive this morning to start going through your things in your office.
it's something i was dreading this weekend when i agreed to come do it.
i didn't realize how much stuff i had given you, all art, and how much of it you put up on your walls. some of it in frames and everything. i feel both proud and sad, i don't want to take it back. i wrap some of it in newspaper and think who might like to unwrap it as a gift. it was meant for you, i don't feel like i have a use for it right now.
the the week your oldest and dearest friend that i've known in my time called you
'the universal mother' refering to your purse and how you'd have everything someone might need in it--a tissue, a band-aid...
your drawers at work are no different. i'm fortunate that you are so organized. everything in a ziploc bag. i find all the stuff you, or someone else, might have needed for your work day---tampons, pads in every size, a brush and curling iron, band-aids, lotions, anti-itch cream, it's all here. including pantyhose, also in a ziploc bag. and extra ziploc bags. snack bars, vitamins..the vitamins really get me. you were always so in to taking vitamins. always worried about calcium and how i probably never got enough--especially my years being vegan
'you really should be taking supplements' you tell me.
here they all are and i think how in your last year you ended up with osteoporosis, due to the terrible steroids they kept you on for so long and at such a high dose. you were 2 inches taller than me and by the end i could see the top of your head. compression fractures in your back you needed surgery on, 2 different times. all the pain your back caused you off and on this past year....meds you took to rebuild your bones. you were so good. walking, taking vitamins, eating well...that's how i remember you. how did you get so sick? all these bags of vitamins, some looking a bit moldy after sitting in a drawer for a year...how much control do we have? someone can do what seems like all the right things and look how it plays itself out.
11-17-08
my grandmother hugs me out of the blue. for a good bit of time, for us.
she tells me
'you're doing a good job'
it's very sweet. i thank her. i wonder what she means exactly by that?
it seems easier to cry about other things than to cry about my mom being gone.
it still feels too much to really believe, understand, or accept. it's only real part of the time, the rest of the time it's like how it was during college or even living in philly- we are just in different states, but if i pick up the phone i'll eventually get to hear her voice. i don't know how to believe the news this is not true.
she tells me
'you're doing a good job'
it's very sweet. i thank her. i wonder what she means exactly by that?
it seems easier to cry about other things than to cry about my mom being gone.
it still feels too much to really believe, understand, or accept. it's only real part of the time, the rest of the time it's like how it was during college or even living in philly- we are just in different states, but if i pick up the phone i'll eventually get to hear her voice. i don't know how to believe the news this is not true.
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