Ramblings as I Remember My Grandma

There’s something to be said about the immensity in the gravitational, magnetizing, pulling, weighing, sinking depths of the electric, flashing, intoxicating symphony of past. As if my theater seat is made of dense, soft rubber that I’m sinking into inch by inch over years and years. The surface suctioning like heavy, thick gel sticking and peeling at my skin. I feel myself dipping back, expecting to get dizzy but instead getting more and more comfortable, less and less okay.

Why is there something to be said? The processing power it takes my central processing unit seems fathoms deep and stories tall, and many days I silently ask for help. Many days I believe it’s not enough power to actually transform anything, so it doesn’t, and I’m back at square one, tired.

Could it be called a prayer if it’s more of a begging for ease? I’m willing to bet most, if not all, other humans experience this and many are completely unaware of this process. I’m becoming aware, so I say:

The process of processing [usually wordless]. We should, yes should, carve words from it. Without words, we stay in the thick, heavy theater seat. The language born of experience gives us a lesson to embody.

This one is for the rebirth of love and meaning in my body.

I think of my grandmother’s house in Allen, Texas. I have memorized the drive, even if I can’t remember street names. I feel my body turning with the car for the 18 minutes it takes to get there. I sense the moments of walking up the concrete steps, surrounding by mediocre-at-best landscaping, knocking gently, and opening the unlocked door to my personal sanctuary, where I was mostly safe. A small dog at my ankles. The TV blaring from the living room. Walls of shitty mystery novels flanking the immediate room to my right. Unmarked brown boxes just delivered, unopened. My aunt and a quick hello right there to the left in her office, Minesweep on a giant screen, Microsoft Outlook on another. The Ellen DeGenerous audience laughs from that loud, loud TV. I slip off my shoes. Deeper in, the hallway where my terrible first oil paintings hang proudly like they actually meant something. Which they did, to my grandma.

I can see the blue plastic cup, glistening with condensation, still nearly full of freshly made iced tea, 2 Sweet-n-Lows, sitting on the small table next to my grandma’s favorite spot, her latest cross-stitching project on her lap. “Hey, girl, how’s it goin’?”