Wednesday, 08 July 2009

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  most recently, some snapshots

  Canary Yellow

  I heard a bit of murmuring in Grandma Marty’s room early this morning, and I was surprised to hear that it was him—that soft, scratchy, mouth-full voice.  What are you doing here? I thought, blurrily. 

  “I didn’t sleep too well last night,” he said to her from behind the closed door, and I propped myself up on my elbow on the couch.  Clear as a bell, I heard him, and then he shuffled out of the bedroom, wrapped in that canary yellow bathrobe.  “Good morning, sweetheart,” he smiled, and I immediately kissed him.

  “I love you.”  I hugged him.  “I miss you.”

   

  I haven’t dreamed about my Grandpa Marty since before he died, I think.  For weeks after, when I’d close my eyes and just drift, I would see his face, stretched tight and waxy, dry and rough like sandpaper, mouth gaping, breath rattling.  His dying-face, but not his face.  Slowly, I’ve come back to his face in my mind, and now, when I think about him, I see him smiling, filled out, healthy, crinkly eyes and mischievous smile—long before I see him in the hospital.

  But I haven’t dreamed him, haven’t spoken to him or touched him, let alone had the opportunity to tell him the very simplest version of anything I’ve wanted to say to him in the year or so since he left: “I love you.  I miss you.”

  It was so good to see him canary-yellow and silver and smiling.

  
  

  BMV, June Fifth

  Today, she wrote June five 2 zero zero nine.

  She didn’t know her address when the nice redhead at the BMV asked her, and to the question, “What was your mother’s maiden name?” she responded, “Audrey.”

  No birthdate came to her mind, and hell, I wanted to giggle, forget about asking for the social security number, sweetheart, because I’m standing here with one of the sweetest women you’ll ever meet, but please don’t ask her the details of who she is, the official stuff.  Just love that she can even sign her name, and that, in this crinkling, crumpling memory of hers, it’s still her name.  Be glad.

  I navigated, clumsily, the terrain of what-can-she-do-for-herself and what-should-I-do-for-her?  In my head, I could hear Ingrid Michaelson protesting, I’m a big girl now, see my big girl shoes…  Still, I gently took her pen while the nice redhead at the BMV asked her questions—“courtesy questions”—that mostly, she couldn’t answer. 

  “Are you a citizen of the United States?”

  “Yeah,” Leona Mae Searls chuckled.

  Name, and I penned in Leona Mae Searls.

  “Have you lived in Ohio your whole life?”

  “Yep,” she said, sober-like, and I wrote 5280 Foxfire Dr, Zanesville, what’s the zip, shit, oh, 43701.

  “Have you ever had a driver’s license or an i.d. issued here before?”

  Silence.

  I left Driver’s License # blank and nudged her.  “Yes,” I whispered. 

  “Ye…Yes,” she said.  “I drove for quite awile, there, but not for awhile these days.”  I’m glad, again, that those fights are over.

  “Sign here, Grandma,” I smile, and she haltingly pens, Leona Mae Searls.  Then, she hesitates at the date.

  “June fifth,” I coax.

  June…fifty…

  “Two,” I stammer, “2009.”

  Two…thou…

  I gently take the pen, and she’s flustered.

  June fifty, two thou 2009.

  She signs maybe three or four more times, with varying degrees of success, Leona Mae Searls.  She smiles blurrily for the crappy camera, and for the tenth, the fiftieth, the millionth time, maybe, I miss my Grandma.

  
  

  Four Fingers

  From here, drowsy and warm, I can see the rough edge of your left cheek.  Your right cheek is pressed into my right shoulder.  Your beard is scratchy-soft on my skin.  Your curls are lit dimly from behind.  The shades are down, but light filters in like dust, falling down. 

  I put four fingers down on the slop of your left shoulder.  I press gently, and the skin and muscles give slightly.  You’re breathing deeply, and my fingers rise and fall, keeping time with your breathing.

  I can’t sleep.  I’ll lie here, supporting you, softening your sleep.  I’m glad to see the morning sunlight on your back, my fingers, glinting off your curls, softening the waking.

  
  

  Morning Breaking

   

  My alarm clock, the blue plastic one that Donna gave me for my birthday, woke me up most mornings at 5.  I would lay for a minute or two in the dark, listening in a fog of sleepiness to the birds who woke, most mornings, at about 4:45, and they started singing—cleared their throats a bit, and by 5:15, they were showing off.  I would sit up, throw my sheets off, and raise my mosquito net, and I would pad across the tile to my short, steep staircase, climb down, and boot up the computer.  While it hummed to life, I padded to the kitchen.  I learned how to step lightly, avoiding the squeaky boards in the hallway so Deb and Ken wouldn’t wake up. 

  I pulled down a mug and a coffee filter or a bag of tea and flipped the switch on the speed kettle.  If it was already hot, and there was a wet, full coffee filter in the single-serve, I knew Ken was awake and tapping away at his computer.

  Tea, milk, and sugar.  A book.  My journal.  Emails.  Rain pouring, shattering against the windows, pooling in the driveway, washing away the ants, the dust, and the roads.  My mornings.

  
  

  Photograph # ?, or Traipsing to Fisenge in the Rain

   

  Each time the clouds have gathered, scowling in the sky, since I came back to the States a little over a month ago, I’ve thought of Theresa and Patricia, umbrellas in hand, pushing through the weeds and maize, and of the question, “Will it rain?”

  “It won’t rain!” I crowed.

  “It will rain…somewhere.” Typical Dru.

  “It will rain this afternoon!” Theresa predicted.

  “It will rain,” said Patricia, and we giggled, and on cue, we were swallowed up in sheets of rain. 

  We slogged through the grass until we reached the first clearing, a cluster of flats, a couple of trees, a porch, shelter, and we huddled there.  We pulled up chairs next to a handful of children—sisters, each knotting and combing the others’ hair, and a baby boy, looking concerned—and an old man on our left.  Patricia and Theresa greeted him in Bemba.  He had obviously welcomed us onto his porch, and he had asked about the two muzungu women, the old one and the young, traipsing through the rain with the two respected black women. 

  I shook out my umbrella as Patricia and Theresa chatted with the man, and I set it on the porch in front of me, useless and limp, as the rain dripped through the ceiling onto my shoes.  I turned to smile at the children crouched in the corner, wishing I could offer one or two my chair without being rude to my hose.  Uncertainly, the oldest girl smiled back at me, and the little boy grimaced.

  “That one,” Dru pointed at the boy, “needs to be checked for worms.”  His round belly poked out from under his t-shirt, and Auntie Dru noticed, of course, and assessed the situation.  He was shivering, and Dru waved him to her and cuddled him close to warm him, and the rain fell, and we waited, patient.  We waited, unconcerned, waited, because that is so much of what we did in that place—waited and hoped.

  
  

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