I LEARNED TO READ on my grandmother’s lap with TIME magazine spread out before us. I’d follow her bony, arthritic finger from one cluster of words to the next until the meaning of a sentence emerged like a mirage in the distance of my tiny mind. I must have been around three years old. I don’t think I even understood what we were doing as “reading,” but more like a game we played with printed words.
We called her Raisy but her given name was Isabelle and she was a beauty who sprayed her hair into a hard helmet of glamor that felt crispy to the touch. I loved her silk embroidered gowns and the beaded bags with bling for clasps and her fancy shoes in the closet of the high-rise apartment along the lake shore. She kept spider plants on the sill and I remember spending what felt like hours there zoning out, pressing my little nails into the chunky pellet leaves, watching them bleed out a clear liquid that looked like tears.
Whenever I slept over at her house, we’d share a bed and fall asleep to the sound of WBBM radio blaring news all night long and I couldn’t really sleep with the sound of mens’ voices grumbling facts I couldn’t care less about but it was her lullaby of sorts if I recall correctly, though it’s been so many years since I was that small person sleeping with her grandma that I can not trust the memory of us together, only the imprint.
In her tiled bathroom, T-Gel shampoo by Neutrogena. On the sills, a jungle of plants blooming wild by the frosted windows. At her desk, a green typewriter, in those drawers, stationery painted by folks with disabilities who had learned to sketch dogs with their toes! In her living room, grand paintings of Italian harbor scenes.
I’m learning to remember these small preferences and choices as a kind of love—the act of knowing them at all, what the people around us want to touch and see all around them.
Certain stories have been solidified over the years when it comes to my sweet grandmother, the mother of my father, who raised us as sweetly with nudges of tenderness and interest in the smallest of details. Like how she liked to carry a snack with her at all times to keep her blood-sugar levels from dipping too low and going mad—”my emergency french fries,” she told me once while clinging to a greasy bag in her lap.
I’ve had dreams about her—wrote a long essay about how I lost her green typewriter, the one she used to write countless love letters to my grandfather when he was stitching up soldiers in Italy during the second war—I’ve never forgiven myself for this! I also swear to the heavens that I saw my grandmother once at a gas station. I could feel her as she put her hand on my shoulder and said hello, but before I could turn around to face her—she vanished.
Well I suppose she visits every time I read a passage from a book—my first teacher—my guide into the imagination—who taught me how to visualize what I read on the page. She made sure I saw what I read in my mind and like I said, I didn’t call this reading at the time, it felt more like a magic trick—like a game we played when we were back at her place and had all the time in the world to lounge around and flip through the pages of her many magazines.
I love this photo of me in my red bikini with my belly sticking out, my grandmother next to me with a hand on my arm, always looking glam in her white dress and stylish shoes, even though it looks like it’s a hot day. I have no idea where we were or what happened before or after this photo was taken, but I keep this one on my mirror so that sometimes I can still hear and feel her presence.
We called her Raisy but her given name was Isabelle and she was a beauty who sprayed her hair into a hard helmet of glamor that felt crispy to the touch. I loved her silk embroidered gowns and the beaded bags with bling for clasps and her fancy shoes in the closet of the high-rise apartment along the lake shore. She kept spider plants on the sill and I remember spending what felt like hours there zoning out, pressing my little nails into the chunky pellet leaves, watching them bleed out a clear liquid that looked like tears.
Whenever I slept over at her house, we’d share a bed and fall asleep to the sound of WBBM radio blaring news all night long and I couldn’t really sleep with the sound of mens’ voices grumbling facts I couldn’t care less about but it was her lullaby of sorts if I recall correctly, though it’s been so many years since I was that small person sleeping with her grandma that I can not trust the memory of us together, only the imprint.
In her tiled bathroom, T-Gel shampoo by Neutrogena. On the sills, a jungle of plants blooming wild by the frosted windows. At her desk, a green typewriter, in those drawers, stationery painted by folks with disabilities who had learned to sketch dogs with their toes! In her living room, grand paintings of Italian harbor scenes.
I’m learning to remember these small preferences and choices as a kind of love—the act of knowing them at all, what the people around us want to touch and see all around them.
Certain stories have been solidified over the years when it comes to my sweet grandmother, the mother of my father, who raised us as sweetly with nudges of tenderness and interest in the smallest of details. Like how she liked to carry a snack with her at all times to keep her blood-sugar levels from dipping too low and going mad—”my emergency french fries,” she told me once while clinging to a greasy bag in her lap.
I’ve had dreams about her—wrote a long essay about how I lost her green typewriter, the one she used to write countless love letters to my grandfather when he was stitching up soldiers in Italy during the second war—I’ve never forgiven myself for this! I also swear to the heavens that I saw my grandmother once at a gas station. I could feel her as she put her hand on my shoulder and said hello, but before I could turn around to face her—she vanished.
Well I suppose she visits every time I read a passage from a book—my first teacher—my guide into the imagination—who taught me how to visualize what I read on the page. She made sure I saw what I read in my mind and like I said, I didn’t call this reading at the time, it felt more like a magic trick—like a game we played when we were back at her place and had all the time in the world to lounge around and flip through the pages of her many magazines.
I love this photo of me in my red bikini with my belly sticking out, my grandmother next to me with a hand on my arm, always looking glam in her white dress and stylish shoes, even though it looks like it’s a hot day. I have no idea where we were or what happened before or after this photo was taken, but I keep this one on my mirror so that sometimes I can still hear and feel her presence.
