blueberries
2004-06-21
@ 7:41 p.m.
i love the way i feel when i get lost in a car ride. driving aimlessly, not concerned with where it is i'm exactly heading. the suns burns my face as the trees speed past my vision. i find myself blurring in with the scenery, blending and melting within it, feeling alive with every bump i hit, every corner i swerve. there's nothing more sensible than realizing that you're miles away from home, and you couldn't feel more blessed.
it was one of these random car rides, the ones you never really plan out ahead of time but just sort of pounce on you from out of nowhere, when i started thinking about my great-grandmother, big momma. that's right, you heard correctly. i used to call her big momma, although now that i think about it, i'm really not certain why i ever called her that. but that was her name, and she was fantastic. absolutely amazing. this stunning, literary-inspiring southern women, filled with wisdom and soul. i hadn't really thought about her in years since she passed away after battling alzheimer's disease. god, what a frightening disease. so, so terrible.
but there i was, driving aimlessly, and all i could think about was my grandmother's hands: strong, yet unsturdy; simple, yet so full of texture and character. years and years of work and labor crossing those gentle fingertips, so stern and steady. i could still feel the way it felt on my skin. gentle, so fucking kind and gentle, and how they used to stroke my hair or pick blueberries out in the fields. we would spend hours picking blueberries under a cloudy sky, filling them by the bucketload, sneaking quick tastes and laughing at ourselves, our hands stained blue. i can't tell you the hours we spent picking blueberries, taking them home and preparing to make cakes and muffins and everything you could possibly imagine out of them. watching the water cascade over them, blueberries slipping out of my grandmother's fingertips and falling into the porcelain sink.
i almost panicked. i don't know why these thoughts were hitting me right then. i hadn't expected to anticipate this bombardment of emotions, this relapse in forgotten memories. i thought i was going to have to pull over and collect myself, understand why her face was staring back at me in the back of my mind. but she kept coming back. her mannerisms, the rocking chair she used to sit in and blow giant, illuminous smoke rings, one after the other. i remember being fascinated at this feat: she would slowly take a drag from her cigarette, the red embers glowing in the dim room. she would curl her lips with precision and exhale, and out would escape these perfect cirlces, one after the next, till the room was filled with dancing circles.
and we always took these little walks everywhere we went, picking flowers or blueberries, or to feed the squirrels she kept as pets in this large cage in her garden. dragonflies would be dancing all around us, swooping up and down and racing all about. then there were the goldfish in the pond that we would watch break the surface of the water, their mouths agape, as we sat on the swingset and rock gently back and forth, talking about god knows what now. these endless summer days, days i took for granted. assuming that they would always be there for me whenever i needed them. days of homemade chicken and dumplings and burnt cheese toast, trails that my sister and i walked over and over again, longing for new adventures.
that was how it was: my brain being attacked by these thoughts all at once, and me being unable to control the order in which they approached me. i could remember all these things, and suddenly there was nothing. there was this gap, this space in time that i couldn't seem to reach back into and recover. something was gone, and i don't know where it went. the next thing i could remember was my grandmother being ill, and that i was frightened about it. she kept calling, screaming for her mother, actually calling my aunt theresa "mommy", and her lying in bed a lot surrounded by these old photos of people i didn't recognize. she was in bed a lot, and i was afraid to come over and visit. god, why was i afraid? i must have still been too young to understand, to be able to comprehend the situation at hand. i don't remember much of the illness, but i do remember one moment when my grandmother had this moment of clarity, where she recgonized me and smiled this child-like smile, and i remember it piercing right through me like a kitchen blade.
and then i remember the phone call. i was visiting my father in shreveport, and my mother had called me. the only thing i can recall from that was me feeling aprehensive about the whole situation. death was something entirely new to me- i had never had anyone close to me pass away before. there was the phonecall... then the funeral. a small funeral house, filled with flowers and people. i was so scared, i couldn't even muster the courage to walk up to the casket by myself. i remember taking my mother's hand, clinging tightly to it, and stepping up to the casket, the breathe escaping my lungs as i gazed upon her lifeless corpse. she looked so calm and sad all at once, as if though all of these emotions and experiences had finally escaped her body in one collective gasp.
the whole process was surreal to me. i don't remember much from that funeral expect sobbing into my mother's arms and these slow, sad country songs sinking from out of the p.a. system. these strangers kept coming up and talking about blueberries. that's the only thing that stood out in my mind. blueberries. how she spent hours picking them, making pies and muffins out of the blue orbs. and somehow, that made me feel better about it all. about death and life and memories, all falling back to the blueberries that my grandmother and i picked during the summer.
that's how it was for me. driving home that night, thinking of blueberries and smoke rings and dirt trails from my childhood. contemplating on where i came from and where i was heading. these moments, these instances that stand out in your mind like a signal flare, and they define who you are, the man that you've become. i wonder if she would be proud of the person i have become. this individual who is creating the kind of life he wants for himself, despite the sacrifices and misconceptions. would she be proud to claim me? accept me as the defective person i am, the collective being i have become? i'd like to think so, and i'd like to think that she's so much happier now, picking blueberries in heaven.
