grandmother – Mindflight

To her last breath, she limits and binds

My grandmother is nearly 95. She is getting more and more confused with her letters, which is to be expected. Yet, the parts of her letters which are not confused indicate all that she has left in her mind – and that is fear and limitation.

I try to let her know what’s going on in my life. My novels, my art, my quest for a fitter body. She’s proud of me, and yet every time she says that she also suggests i do less. I say I take a walk every day. She says maybe I should make it shorter. I say I’m doing art every day for Inktober. She says maybe I should do some art and leave it for the rest day if I can’t finish.

It’s maddening! This poor woman has spent her whole life lying to herself, praying for forgiveness, pinning her hopes on things she can’t control, giving up her self control and her power, all while trying to control others with passive aggressiveness.

I don’t want to be told to do less, to pace myself, that it’s okay if I don’t finish today. That’s what held me down and that’s what I’m setting myself free of. I don’t want to be held down anymore. I want to fly.

If by some miracle, despite all lack of medical care, I were to reach the ripe old age of 95 – and I were also to have a younger woman I called granddaughter – I would want to tell her “you go! Do your best! I’m proud of you! Fly high!”

What shall I pass to the future?

Thoughts About Life

I wrote this a couple years ago but it’s still very true.

My grandmother is ninety-three, and I am thirty-five, and my mother’s age is one I’ll not reveal, or she may thump me. As I get nearer to my thirty-sixth year I start to wonder what virtues, and habits, and passions will I pass down to future generations? Will I be yet another forgotten worker bee, part of the landscape? Or if I am remembered at all, will there be some bright spark that others might find good to see?

My grandmother still writes in a fine classical Palmer hand, in a style that predates the current D’Nealian version and was popularized in the late 1900s. Until a week ago, I wrote in a not so fine and brutally pragmatic print hand. It was readable, but never had a pretense of elegance. Is this what I want to have when I am ninety-three? Or sixty, even? Will I rather have eighty or ninety years of practice writing in something that is not fair to look on, or fifty five years of practice in lovely penmanship? I know the choice I am making now.

The same goes for books. Will I tell future generations of the works of Shelley, and Tennyson, and Kipling, and Lafcadio Hearn, and Robert Heinlein, and Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle, and Shakespeare, and Samuel Clemens, and Miyamoto Musashi? Or will the only books I know be Harry Potter, Star Trek or Star Wars novels, and modern fantasy? The website Project Gutenberg is a priceless portal to many immortal works from all around the world. It’s also free, which is rather important as well.

Will I start a Work of Noble Note? Will the others, in my generation, do the same? What will their choices be?

And what of you? I’ve covered two things I’d like to take to the future. What things from the past would you like to pass forward? What’s worthwhile to you? I’d love to hear it.

The Cat Pumpkin

Thoughts About Life

When I was a teenager, my mom would often take me to see my grandmother. I didn’t really mind visiting. It was a little boring but not so bad really, and nice to get out of the house. She lived in a retirement community, basically senior living apartments.

One time they had a halloween party. There was pumpkin carving and anyone who knows me knows I’m all over pumpkin carving. That time was no exception. My favorite pumpkin, and one my mom still remembers too, was the cat pumpkin. He had ears and whiskers and everything. Everybody loved that cat pumpkin!

If you want to make your own cat pumpkin, make sure the eyes are fairly large when you cut them out and keep the pieces whole. Then trim those pieces down to nice triangular ear shapes. Secure them with bits of toothpick to the top of the pumpkin. Carve a small triangular nose and use three more toothpicks on either side for whiskers. You may need to whittle them a bit so they stick in more easily.

Everybody loved that pumpkin and I loved the memory!