a pouring out, of sorts

I thought about writing this on the computer, and couldn’t brig myself to turn the thing on. It seemed so cold and impersonal, sitting hunched in its dark corner in my grandparent’s dining room like some sort of futuristic troll; meanwhile, this notebook and a pile of ballpoints lay strewn across their kitchen table invitingly, almost comfortingly, in the rays of a slanted sunbeam from a window facing their backyard. While I’m here, so many thoughts and memories flood my mind. I get restless, knowing that my slow hand cannot possibly record them all; computer or notebook, it matters not.
For instance, the bit in the previous paragraph about the rays of sun coming from the window led me to think about the backyard, which in turn made me think of all the memories: some rudimentary, some essential to my adolescence, some of shame. It makes me think of how things always change, despite how some things always stay the same. The old swing set my 16-20 year old uncles made for me when I was born….. it was made of a plank and untreated rope, and it moved back and forth as I swung, like a rocking chair… the swing whose ropes became more and more frayed and moldy as the years passed… it’s gone, long removed in favor of lounge space and a spot for a barbeque pit.

In the house, the piano is gone; how many hours of my life were spent joyously plink-plunking on that piano? From my first breakthrough as a child into 2-handed playing, to witnessing a younger cousin knock out one of his front teeth one summer day from simply slipping off the front of the piano stool, to me tentatively feeling out the piano parts of my favorite Nine Inch Nails song when I was 17…. It’s also gone. Casualties of the years, I suppose.

Some things are the same, some of the furniture: the couch set on is still on the porch, the same one I got caught giving my first serious boyfriend head on at age 16 (little known fact, but there it is). The couch where I used to sleep every Saturday night, with a pile of movies, usually a half gallon of chocolate ice cream and what my grandmother used to refer to as a “puff” but what I now know in my adult state to be a “comforter,” it’s still here. My grandmother’s comfy green swivel chair? Still here. That creak in the hardwood floor between the living room and the hall? You betcha, it’s still there. These things make me smile… they are sublime moments amid a sea of troubles. You know, like this one, right NOW, taking place at their kitchen table in a warm ray of sun.

If I need a moment in time to transport myself back to “the good old days” before Grampa was dying of cancer, and before Grammie’s heart attacks, before I grew up and the world “moved on,” all I have to do is descend the stairs to the basement. The musty smell, I welcome it like a warm blanket. All around are items and boxes of stuff from years past, well stored and clean. From old toys, dolls, craft projects, decorations, to special occasion dresses, suits and coats not worn in twenty years or better, it’s all still there and ready for an impromptu trip down memory lane. All this can be achieved without even touching a thing, I have discovered.

But at this time, like dark storm clouds threatening in the distance, my mind wanders to the inevitable darker side to question: What will happen to this place of comfort, to all these things that have the power to make me recall so strongly the moments of our collective lives? Who will remember or care, when not just Grammie and Grampa, but my aunts, uncles, dad, mom and eventually me, my brothers and sister are sick, dying or dead? There was great love here, some angry times, some of strife and doubt, many of greatness and of strength. Will that all really just be lost, so much particulate in the air flow (I refuse to be cliché here)?

Do not mistake me, I do not have designs on any material items, I do not care about “things” per se. It’s the memories attached to these things that mean anything at all to me. Also do not mistake, I do not plaec ANY importance on myself in particular, I’m hardly anything at all, yet another speck on the anthill that is the Earth. But I feel as though someone should try to memorialize something of these moments. It feels to me as though I’m running out of time, as if I have a limited time to record them before the golden sweetness of these memories and the meaning and feeling of these moments in hardship are lost to my tenuous memory.

I know that, try as I might, I can’t do it justice. And I feel arrogant as well as urgent; who am I to write about being a caregiver? I’m not weathered, I have little experience. I’m only “babysitting” my Grampa now for the second time. The first time was last week, then I got sick with a terrible head cold and couldn’t come again since. I don’t have it so hard, I know it and I don’t forget it or the others who’ve had to sacrifice more and give more of themselves and their lives from this situation. These are logical statements and declarations, however… and as such they have no diminishing effect on the intangible emotional reactions that are an entirely human and inevitable reflex.

This is supposed to be the part where I indulge myself by delving into my emotional responses to all this. I’m not going to do that here, I just don’t think it respectful or appropriate. It doesn’t honor the pure spirit of those emotions, nor does it do anything to dignifiy the sufferings of others who may be reading this and feeling the same things, but hurting too much to have those feelings articulated in public to strangers. Those who share my expereinces in any way in losing a loved one to illness, whether suddenly or slowly, will know without needing a lurid description the flow of anguish, hope, angst and the pulling together of family that such a situation brings about. To those who do know how I feel, I must give my most sincere apologies that youv’e had to go through such a thing; to those who do not know, I say: thank whatever God you believe in that you’ve been spared the hardship.

I recently was told by a friend of a friend that I should write memoirs. I laughed it off, as an impossibility. No one will want to read said memoirs, and I have nothing to say regardless. I’m only 27, what could I possibly have accumulated in my relatively young life to fill a worthwhile book of memoirs? At this moment, I still feel that no one will care to read any of it, or any of this that I’m writing now, but maybe there’s something to be said despite my misgivings. I don’t need anyone to read it anyway, that wouldn’t be the point. This writing is not for fortune or fame of any sort. I don’t have any illusion that if I write about real, dramatic stuff on my blog I’ll get noticed like Julie Powell did for her self discovery during the Julie/Julia Project. I would frankly find that in bad taste. Of course, like any living person, I welcome success. Duh. But not like that, in that way… it would be like it had blood on it, to me.

I know I started this particular chapter of whatever “this” turns out to be talking about how I wrote this instead of typing it. As a consequence, no one can see my handwriting because this has been typed up, in the end, for posting on my blog. But if you could see it, and if you could be in my head, you’d be able to see it when I compare the two… how similar my handwriting is to that of my grandfather’s formerly firm hand. And therein lies the anguish. There is no other way to put it.