Grilled Cheese

So, I went to the Crystal diner the other night with some friends… and it was odd. Odd because the last time I was there was several years ago, with a friend who is now dead. So I thought I’d blog a bit about Brian. But there really isn’t much to say except that I miss him. I miss hearing him order his favorite meal (grilled cheese). I miss the occasional stutter he had worked hard to conceal. I miss hearing his latest musical compositions. I miss dancing with friends while he played something reminiscent of our national anthem, but with a lot more finesse than the original. I miss sitting in his darkened apartment and feeling like it was night even though the sun was warm and friendly outside; he’d covered every window, every door-crack, every teeny space where sunlight might tiptoe in. I miss watching basketball diaries for the first time while he described for me just what it feels like to do cocaine… and why he wasn’t doing it anymore. I miss the arms that were covered with tattoos he had drawn himself. I miss the sarcasm that was never far from his voice, and the way he’d say ‘whatever, milk-girl’ to shut me up when he wanted to win an argument. (long story) I miss the way he said “tricky” when he realized I was about five inches shorter when not wearing platforms. I miss that he was kind of thin, and that his pants legs were wider than my dress hems. I miss his glasses, his ready smile, and the fact that he always seemed to be laughing. Usually at me, but still… He wrote a book I never finished reading because it gave me such nightmares I couldn’t sleep… and I, for unknown reasons, tend to love violent films & novels. It was really disturbing work, truly artful. They said it was some sort of quickly invading infection. He missed work for a few days and his parents broke into his apartment and found him in bed. And that was that.

Samhain

Samhain’s my favorite. The old year ends and the wheel begins again. We get to let out all our pent-up anger, all our fear. We get to think about the loved ones we’ve lost. We get to pull out our trusty magnifying glasses (as a Virgo I always have one close by) and examine our pain, poke at it, turn it around, dissect it a little, taste it, smell it, see how it reacts when mixed with sodium phosphate, and try to figure out exactly what’s going on in there. Then we get to polish it until it shines like starlight, and put it into our bag of fancy things that make us people. I like that. Good plan.

Red Recliners and Autumn Storms

The other day I solicited the help of my sister in a mundane task that turned out to be ... well, meaningful. I am, for those who are unaware, in the process of moving back to the farm where I spent most of my childhood. I've been renovating the apartment my grandparents occupied for a large portion of my life, slowly painting and organizing and moving furniture, re-attaching the bowl-shaped antique light fixtures my grandmother had removed because they inevitably end up collecting bugs & needing a cleaning, going through boxes and trunks of family heirlooms and family junk. It's amazing how many things fill a place when four generations have lived in it. But I digress... (and, am likely to do so again, so please bear with my inherent A.D.D.)

The task was to move two chairs: my grandfather's red leather recliner (beautiful chair) and my great-grandmother's not-so-well-preserved wicker chair into the rather large finished attic which is to become half rec-room, half work-shop. This involved, among other things, removing some wooden doors, an astute understanding of physics and spatial relationships, and dealing with the fact that my grandfather is indeed dead, and will probably be ok with me moving his chair. So we moved it upstairs, and so far, no haunting. Not a specter, no sudden chills, the chair hasn't mysteriously apparated back downstairs, or refused to recline, or been burning hot to the touch. It is rather anti-climactic. Maybe I'm a little disappointed by the lack of interest, the lack of sudden and ultimate proof that there is an afterlife, the lack of communication from Popie's ghost confirming that he is still paying attention to me and offering his opinions.

I can not describe (though I'm going to try) the bond that can exist with a place in which one was raised. Especially when you were raised as a farmer, and when your family has lived and laughed and cried and died and worked on a piece of land. That connection is so deep that it pervades everything you are. Earth has moods, for example. I know some of you know what I mean, and some of you don't. But soil has moods, just like trees, just like cats. And when you grok a place, you are touched by those moods. I understand why people developed pagan religions that reflect the seasons, because you can't help but try to express the changing of the Earth in some way that can be shared with the people you love. Especially when most of the people you love have experienced those moods with you. The problem is, that it makes change difficult, because every tree, every bush, every light fixture, farm building, every random clump of briars (that are really secret forts where my siblings and I plotted the demise of the forces of evil, and occasionally the forces of good) has some sort of memory attached to it.

But in the end... I am coming home, to myself. My life has been very, desperately, busy over the past month since Pennsic. Many things are changing. People who I thought were lost have been found. I've discovered a closeness to my sister I did not think possible. I have started doing some work about which I feel very strongly, and have found others who feel the same way. People who caused me to doubt myself are no longer in my life. I have found that I can have a positive effect on the life of someone who hurt me many, many years ago, and that I'm no longer angry or resentful toward him. I feel as though I am coming full circle, back to where I belong, both physically and emotionally. I took a long detour for several years, but I think my soul might be getting back where it should be. It is not just the physicality of moving, but something deeper is changing for the better. Some fear I had that kept me trapped has dissipated, and I am more free than I was. I can not tell you the peace I find when I take my hour commute and end up looking up at the same stars my great-grandparents watched, standing next to the pear tree my great-grandfather planted, and my grandfather grafted so it now grows two types of pears. There is no way to express the precise scent of the place, or the exact way the wind picks up in the autumn when you're four hours out from a storm, which is different in early summer, and in mid-spring, or before a blizzard.

So last night I sat watching a Hitchcock film, with my cat on my lap, curled up under a Rainbow Brite blanket, in my grandfather's favorite chair, feeling more at peace with myself and the world around me than I've been in a great many years. I don't think Popie minded at all.