January 26, 2014
If I were ten years old today, I would be grating cheese into a thin jar that rested precariously on the black and white porcelain table. You would be crocheting booties for a baby I would hear about for weeks, but would probably never know. The white yarn would shimmer with iridescent strands as it flowed between your arthritic fingers. You would call my name to pull me from the joy of cooking with my grandfather and into your world of stories and creation. I would pet the yarn softly as I listened to one tale after another.
If it was two Sundays ago, I would be calling you on the phone for our weekly talk. I would tell you about my dinner plans and how sometimes I make spaghetti and think about you. We would revel in stories of the past threaded together with the nimbleness you still possessed. You would spool out details of your mother’s passing when you were fifteen and how the train ride from New York City with her coffin in the last car was almost more than you could bear. Then you would loop in snippets about the squirrels outside your window and how sometime’s it’s fun to be a nut. The stories chained together lessons about being present, having fun, and how the world just doesn’t make sense when you are sad or alone.
It is Sunday again and you are not available for calling –at least not on this earthly plane. My fingers must be nimble as they dance across the keyboard, wading in spaces that are sad or don’t make sense. It is my turn to knit together the stories of our time until they become something beautiful and iridescent like the thread you knotted and chained as we sat together on the couch.
aroundthebound 