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Yay, yay, home earlier than I thought I'd be. Time to read n' blog n' write n' draw n' ...
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Of all olfactory senses, I've always felt that smell is the strongest. At least when it comes to memory. Today I was walking down the stairs at work to head outside [into what I'm pretty sure was a hurricane] and the last flight had a lingering scent that...BOOM...took me back. To my grandpa. It was HIS smell and no other. It was the smell of summers playing on the driveway or in the backyard. Him there on the chair smoking his cigar and me pausing in the midst of the action to raise my head and watch him puff. I remember watching the swirls of smoke and wondering where they went and if other people would know that was my grandpa's smell. His garage reeked of cigar smoke. In a good way. The smell brings his face back to me...
I was thinking of this during my lunch break...walking through the storm....I had no real destination in mind...but images of him there, beside his golf cart, sitting on that plastic chair, puffing that cigar, whirled through my head.
I [beeeeeeeep] love[ed] that man. Yeah, we had our differences...a man born at the beginning of the century and a woman born in the mid '80s are bound to. He triggered something inside of me that made me stand up at the dinner table and use my entire voice and the span of my arms to tell him that the fight for women's rights is
real, that happiness doesn't always mean a big pile of
money in the bank, that a mix of skin colors in one room is a
beautiful thing, etc. etc.
He was set in his ways and at times, yeah, it made me want to scream at the top of my lungs. And I would. And it felt so amazing and it always ended with his strong grip on the back of my neck...but in a comforting way. That was always his way of protecting, or his equivalent to a hug, or...something just to say "I know...I'm here".
I think that perhaps he found a secret delight (or something) in the fact that when he said "I'd like a coffee", instead of jumping up to grab one for him (like the rest of the family), I'd say "The machine's on the counter top" ha.
Love love love him. Miss miss miss him. And I'm not idealizing him....I know he was far from the perfect man. But that doesn't mean it's not ok for me to love him w/ all my heart [enter more deeps thoughts that I don't feel like writing right now]
He was 86 and somehow it still came as a surprise. He just seemed like he'd never go. And that's how I feel about my grandma, too. And it's so painfully obvious that she'll be gone soon, too. And I need to make sure I get it all in before it's gone. Ask her everything, show her everything, let her know that she's brave even though she thinks she's weak, she's bright, sassy, wise, and more sentimental than she'll ever lead on.
...wow....tangent. But yeah, smells....
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Once Upon A TimeI called myself
lost, which is kind
of funny, because in order
to be lost, isn't it implied
that you know what it is
to be found?
I would stroll
the streets singing, "I
once was lost, but now..."
and realizing I
wasn't what came
next, I'd let my voice
trail off.
People would talk
about paths, and how
you know you're on
one, and how to find
one, and how everybody
has their own. But it seemed
like they were all trekking
along slightly varied models
of the same route.
I'd
look out
my window
as a young girl
and think about this path
of mine and when it would reveal
itself to me and how long
it'd take to travel. I remember
hoping it was a dirt path, not paved
smooth and glossy
like the new
streets running throughout
the town. I wanted potholes,
rocks, sticks and mud, curves,
hills, cliffs, and forests.
I wanted texture, color,
characters and music.
[to be continued...again, lazy writing night]
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Thinking a lot tonight about childhood and such. When I was little I would hum as I fell asleep. I remember thinking that if I didn't, I'd lose my voice in the middle of the night. Hm, wonder what the root of that was. Or maybe this is something a lot of kids think?
I remember being elated practically every morning when I'd wake up and hummmmmm and hear sweet, sweet voice.
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Re-defining. Re-defining.
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so much more, but I'll leave you tonight with this, because I love it...and I love Jack Gilbert...and I will never, ever forget the night I heard him recite "The Forgotten Dialect of The Heart" and this, too, is quite stunning:
Tear It DownWe find out the heart only by
dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and
wade mouth-deep into love.
We must
unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should
insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the
wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body
within that body.
-Jack Gilbert
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Yes, yes.
