spynotes ::
  January 23, 2007
Homesick

Thanks for your comments on my post yesterday about my grandmother. I was particularly moved by the stunning generosity of one of you (you know who you are). Anyone who says you cannot find friends or community via �a machine,� as my grandmother might refer to the computer, doesn�t have readers like mine. I am grateful, more than you know.

At the moment, I am feeling more sad about it, I think, than my grandmother. She is not remembering enough to be sad. Whenever we call or visit, it is an unexpected gift. The flip side, of course, is comments like �aren�t you coming this weekend?� which make me worry that she lives in a state of always waiting for something to happen. But mostly, I think, she is simply in the present. It is as if we are each standing on one side of an opaque piece of glass, struggling to recognize the shapes we see beyond it, struggling for different reasons. But the struggle is, in some ways, the same.

I am feeling melancholy about it all. I want to see her � and I will quite soon. But I also miss where she is. It is a relatively recent adoption for home, that southern area. I�m no southerner. It�s not in my nature. But I�ve led a transient life and after my grandmother sold her house in Michigan, years ago now, the only other steady place has been the island where my parents live now. We�ve vacationed there since I was a teen and it�s gotten under my skin. It�s been far too long since I�ve been there � over a year. It is a physical ache I have, the missing of live oaks and palmettos and Spanish moss dripping like stalactites along the cavernous main road, of decaying walls, rusty corrugated cabins devoured by kudzu, the mystifying �Sensation�s Entertainment Palace� (I swear I�ll photograph it some day, before it�s swept away in a wave of fresh development), the smell of the salt marshes, the spouting of dolphins and their pink bellies too, the mournful keening of sea birds, in great clouds behind the trawlers. This foreign country has somehow seeped into my bloodstream. It is mine now.

There is a place on the peninsula next to the island � a town at the end of the world � where there is a house entirely covered in seashells, just like a giant sandcastle. It�s the kind of house that when I was AJ�s age I always imagined I�d live in, seaweed banners flying on driftwood poles along the ridgepole. It is a few miles from the house, but it takes an hour to get to. There are no bridges here. A kayak would be faster if you had one.

In my head I�m living in the castle, moving the furniture to and fro, carving spaces out of the walls as I need them. The floor is shimmering light, gritty and always in motion. There is a cemetery beyond, across from the tiny white church. The stones are hundreds of years old and totally smooth, any trace of names scoured clean and white by the whorls of sand swept up across decades, centuries. Inside, inside I can still hear the ocean. I�m living in the shell you hold up to your ear. The sound echoes in my head anytime I care to listen to it.

AJ picks up the shell that is always next to my bed. It is a large polished cowrie, not from any beach I�ve ever seen. It�s brown speckled back is tortoise-like. He holds it to his ear, his eyes rolling up in concentration. �I hear it! I hear Bamma and Bop�s ocean!�
And I know it is, the one I know. The only one he�s ever seen. I put it to my ear. I hear my heartbeat, my breathing, and in the distance, the echoes of the shrieks of AJ and his cousins running in and out of the waves, daring to be caught.

5 people said it like they meant it

 
:: last :: next :: random :: newest :: archives ::
:: :: profile :: notes :: g-book :: email ::
::rings/links :: 100 things :: design :: host ::

(c) 2003-2007 harri3tspy

<< chicago blogs >>