I’m a Magpie
Last Wednesday night, at approximately 7:00 PM, my grandmother lost her mind. This isn’t news, really; she’s been losing it, on and off, since she was first diagnosed with dementia a few years back. But this time it was on my watch, at the kitchen table where I used to munch on homemade granola while [...]
I went grocery shopping with my grandmother and her caregiver today. As we were unloading bags from the car, I was struck with this sudden memory, a full on flashback of the time Brian and I visited grandma back in 2003, when we first moved to the West Coast.
I guess grandma must have been about [...]
The last few nights, I’ve been spooked at bedtime, reluctant to sleep in my darkened room. I’ve been leaving the bedside lamp on. It bothers me and makes it hard to fall asleep, but without it I start to imagine all sorts of things, like torsos, headless and legless, crawling up onto the bed, or [...]
My grandmother’s always losing things. The first day I was back up here, it was her glasses; she and I were getting ready for a walk, and she materialized beside me in a pair of huge, circa nineteen-seventy-two frames. “My prescription needs changing,” she said. “These are good for now.”
“Ok,” I said, and we went [...]
I’m at the airport, killing time before my flight home, which has been delayed two and a half hours. You’d think that would be a good time to catch up on work or personal writing, but instead it’s mostly been spent trolling airport gift shops, fondling the smoked salmon and books of Northwest Coast art. [...]
My grandparents (and my grandfather’s reflection) at their wedding.
Grandma, my dad and I found this in an album last night, after Grandma’s birthday dinner.
“You look so young!” I said. “How old were you?”
“Twenty five?” said grandma.
“That is young.”
“Twenty four? Twenty three? Twenty two?”
We all laughed. “Young!”
It’s 8:31, and Grandma should’ve been up about a half an hour ago (no reason, really. She just set her alarm for 8 AM last night when I was putting her to bed). About a minute ago, I heard her stirring upstairs, so I went up, glass of water in hand, to help her get [...]
So there’s this urban legend I heard once, about this woman who’s in an ice cream shop when she notices Jack Nicholson is standing next to her. She plays it cool, completes the ice-cream-for-money exchange, and heads outside — only to discover that she no longer has her ice cream with her. As she’s standing [...]
My grandmother and my aunt Carol, hiding behind the rhubarb leaves
One thing I always do when visiting my grandparents is pore through all the family albums. It’s just a more elaborate kind of narcissism, I suppose, but I’ve always been somewhat soothed by looking at these sort of reflections out into the past.
It seems to [...]
I'm a freelance writer and perpetual graduate student living in San Francisco. Special skills include dog charming, brochure writing, slapdash cooking and long-winded nattering. I also enjoy watching the sunset reflected in the tall buildings downtown.
For a while there, I taught classes on Classical literature, philosophy, and the history of religion at New College of California. I have an MA and an MFA in Writing, and started library school in the fall of 2009.