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I'm home today...enjoying the rare day off from work. I had planned on doing nothing more than painting my toenails and watching television. It's barely cloudy outside...just cool enough to open the windows and let the breeze dance through all the rooms of this house. Perhaps it was the movement of the wind, but I've ended up cleaning, arranging, unpacking. I unwrapped my grandmother's liqueur set that's been in newspaper and bubble wrap since the big earthquake in Los Angeles. My ex was in New York and I was sleeping on the couch while he was gone. I'm one of those women that, once your imprint's in my bed, I can hardly bear it without you. I'd had a fire going earlier and had fallen asleep, covered with nothing but my favorite quilt and cats at my feet. Then, everything shattered. I remember thinking I was home (Texas was still home to me then...always) at first, and that someone was grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me awake. I ran to the doorway and clung to it, sitting on the floor. The earth shook and I raged. I wasn't frightened; I was angry. I was screaming at being ripped away from my life, at leaving this earth in a place that was strange to me, so far from my roots. You motherfucker. Motherfucker. Fuck. I didn't think of a god; I thought of fate. I thought of three blind fucking sisters snipping my skein of yarn by accident. It's not time! I yelled up to the sky. I held on so hard I left fingerprints in the plastered walls. It turned quiet and my neighbor (I think his name was Jack...an aspiring stand-up comedian) came to check on me. He knew I was alone. I came downstairs and the iron gate to the small porch was locked. I don't have a key, I said. I never can find my keys, Jack. I want out of here. He ran across and got his spare key (that he had from previous "I locked myself in/out" episodes) and unlocked me. He was very nice and didn't comment on the fact that I was completely naked until about three weeks later. My china cabinet was destroyed....so many things. I told myself over and over...they're just things. Just things. But they meant something to me. They were connections with pieces of my family. I went back the next day, certain that the liqueur set that had belonged to my grandmother, and her grandmother before her, was dust. The tiny flutes were so fragile. Paper shell thin with tiny deep red flowers and gold leaves painted on them with a touch as light as a kiss. I said my good byes to them before I even went back in to survey the damage. There, covered by broken bits of more sturdy wares, were all of them. Not a scratch on them. Intact. It meant more to me than just having the glasses and decanter. Our circle, a wreath made of the intertwined hands of all the women in my tribe, had not been broken. And so I unwrapped my grandmother's liqueur set today, acknowledging the roots that brought me home, breathing in the scent of old newsprint and strength beyond measure.
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*hug*
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re: Unbreakable
I am so glad that your Grandmother's liqueur glasses survived that horrible quake. I remember it well (as I am here in L.A.) and it makes an unearthly sound, one of roaring silence that seems to fill the air. Hurricanes, tornadoes, we see and hear coming at least.
And it never fails to amaze me that the most fragile of beloved objects can survive when others do not. I like to think our love, our bonds give them strength, whispered words of love passed down through generations encase them in steel in times of need.
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Wait! Come back!
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But damn, every time I read you, old Guy Clark starts singing the sound track:
Pack up all your dishes.
Make note of all good wishes.
Say goodbye to the landlord for me.
That son of a bitch has always bored me.
Throw out them LA papers
And that moldy box of vanilla wafers.
Adios to all this concrete.
Gonna get me some dirt road back street
If I can just get off of this LA freeway
Without getting killed or caught
I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought
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First Jaarron becomes a man and now you become something other than the latin relolutionalry that I never even knew you were!!!!! Speaking of earthquakes, my LJ footing keeps shifting underfoot!!
Hey CC -- I have to tell you that my favorite writing of yours centers on your family.
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Strange, n'est pas?
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Jan
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