When I started this blog it was intended to keep me writing occasionally throughout the summer. Nothing worse than starting a new semester when you haven't written a thing for months. It was also to be a lighthearted commentary on my life and life in general. Hence the name, the looking glass files. Now, however, I think it's time we stepped through the looking glass for a moment.
Recently my Grandfather passed away. A slough of memories soon followed. Memories of rooms filled with cigarette smoke and something hedonistically bad for me frying in the cast iron. Conversation flowing around a kitchen table and CNN blaring in the background. Handmade birdhouses adorning doilie-covered shelves and end-tables. The candy drawer, always filled, and always accessible much to the dismay of my dentist and four molars. Trips to K-mart in Fargo, my Grandmother surreptitiously adding to her stockpile of Christmas ornaments (much to the dismay of my Grandfather).
It wasn't all fried food, candy and birdhouses. Memories of my Grandpa yelling at someone on the phone while I watched my Grandma cry. My Uncle taking his girlfriends car on a high-speed chase on Easter. Finding out that my Grandma had lung cancer and only a few months to live. Watching as her hair fell out. The same hair that I would brush for her on sleepover nights. The same hair that her daughters would dye either red or blond for her occasionally. When she was blond she was Dolly Parton, when she had red hair she looked like Ann Margaret, to me at least.
The mind's eye can contort your memories, making them more fantastic or worse than they actually were. That time period seems magical now. The moments spent with my Grandpa and Grandma have taken on a Disney-like quality. Getting up for 4:30 AM breakfast while my Grandpa got ready to drive truck for the day. Going back to sleep, then waking up for another breakfast later that morning. Now of course 4:30 AM seems like a horrendous hour to be up at but I'll take the two breakfasts.
My Grandma may not have looked like Ann or Dolly (she was better looking), most places disdain large amounts of cigarette smoke in the air, excessive amounts of sugar are bad for your teeth, numerous documents and studies try to steer you away from fried food. Knowing that now would I would do it differently? Would my small hands have not groped for whatever morsel I could dig out of that drawer, would I have not gotten up at 4:30 to get extra sleep that experts say is the key to a long life? Would I have declined to stay at my Grandparents house because they smoked inside?
All of these memories, these experiences are unique. There is nothing that could be changed without something drastically altering in me. I wouldn't change anything. I looked through the looking glass and saw the other side. No fried food, no political arguments around the table, no one lighting up a Basic. What I saw was something inhuman. A sanitized version of life that only machines and robots should experience. Give me it all. The good, the bad, the fried, the smokey, the sweet, etc...
This is dedicated to my Grandparents and the memories that they gave me. One day we'll all be together again at that big table in the sky. Certainly not a feast of saints, just regular people enjoying each others company.
