My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears

Poetry Foundation (publisher of Poetry Magazine) has a really great app for iPhone and Android. You can search, save things to favorites, or just spin for random selections. That's how I came across this great poem by Mohja Kahf about cultural divides and generational experience.

I'm recording all the poems I post this month. Click the title of the poem to listen.

My Grandmother Washes her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears

My grandmother puts her feet in the sink
       of the bathroom at Sears
to wash them in the ritual washing for prayer,
wudu,
because she has to pray in the store or miss
the mandatory prayer time for Muslims
She does it with great poise, balancing
herself with one plump matronly arm
against the automated hot-air hand dryer,
after having removed her support knee-highs
and laid them aside, folded in thirds,
and given me her purse and her packages to hold
so she can accomplish this august ritual
and get back to the ritual of shopping for housewares
Respectable Sears matrons shake their heads and frown
as they notice what my grandmother is doing,
an affront to American porcelain,
a contamination of American Standards
by something foreign and unhygienic
requiring civic action and possible use of disinfectant spray
They fluster about and flutter their hands and I can see
a clash of civilizations brewing in the Sears bathroom

My grandmother, though she speaks no English,
catches their meaning and her look in the mirror says,
I have washed my feet over Iznik tile in Istanbul
with water from the world's ancient irrigation systems
I have washed my feet in the bathhouses of Damascus
over painted bowls imported from China
among the best families of Aleppo
And if you Americans knew anything
about civilization and cleanliness,
you'd make wider washbins, anyway
My grandmother knows one culture - the right one,

as do these matrons of the Middle West. For them,
my grandmother might as well have been squatting
in the mud over a rusty tin in vaguely tropical squalor,
Mexican or Middle Eastern, it doesn't matter which,
when she lifts her well-groomed foot and puts it over the edge.

"You can't do that," one of the women protests,
turning to me, "Tell her she can't do that."
"We wash our feet five times a day,"
my grandmother declares hotly in Arabic.
"My feet are cleaner than their sink.
Worried about their sink, are they? I
should worry about my feet!"
My grandmother nudges me, "Go on, tell them."

Standing between the door and the mirror, I can see
at multiple angles, my grandmother and the other shoppers,
all of them decent and goodhearted women, diligent
in cleanliness, grooming and decorum
Even now my grandmother, not to be rushed,
is delicately drying her pumps with tissues from her purse
For my grandmother always wears well-turned pumps
that match her purse, I think in case someone
from one of the best families of Aleppo
should run into her - here, in front of the Kenmore display

I smile at the midwestern women
as if my grandmother has just said something lovely about them
and shrug at my grandmother as if they
had just apologized through me
No one is fooled, but I

hold the door open for everyone
and we all emerge on the sales floor
and lose ourselves in the great common ground
of housewares on markdown.

by Mohja Kahf from Emails from Scheherazade 

137.

And now it's Thursday, and I'm dead tired and wracking my brain for something to say because it will not do to miss three days in a row. It's not like they were uneventful days. Stuff happened. I went places. Things got done. Fun was had.

Still, I'm having trouble marshaling any of it into what might be called a narrative. So I'm going to fall back on a standard and relate something my niece said. Mainly because my parents really like getting to hear this stuff. Think of me as the family archivist. (Also think of me as flawed, for a number of reasons, but here because I may not have remembered her whole spiel accurately. It's representative. The bit about the cup is right, though.)

"Daddy!"

"Yes."

"I want to travel with you on a train or in a cup with milk and then we fly and go down a slide and it says 'mew, mew' and I take Orange Kitty!"

"Please never stop talking."

129.

My niece has been playing little narrative games by herself for the last several weeks. It's fascinating to listen to her structure a world and have conversations and give directions to the toys she's playing with, or just the imaginary playmates in her head. As I stood at the printer this morning, I heard this snippet:

"I'm a big sister!"

"Whoa. You are giant."

121.

My grandmother passed away today - my father's mother. I've written about her here before, and in the next few weeks I'll be writing about her some more. Today all I really want to say is how fortunate I've been to have all of my grandparents in my life well into my adulthood. She was the last; but I had four wonderful grandparents, and I had a good long time with all of them. My relationship with each one was unique, and I'm so grateful to have had them for so long. I realized today that I have talismans from each one that are special to me - things I wear or use or keep out where I can see them. I've been so lucky to know them, and I'm lucky to have them still.

97.

When my parents came to visit last September, my dad brought me a portable typewriter that Grandma wanted to get rid of. It had been a retirement gift to my great grandfather in the mid-60's, and after his death she added it into her rotation of machines. She stopped using typewriters some time ago, but still had several in the house. This one still works well, and even arrived here with a couple of extra ribbons. I like its tidy compactness  and dark green keys. The Underwood logo fills me with delight. So far the life of this typewriter seems to be about the end of things. I'm interested to see if I can start something with it.

93.

I've never been great at asking for help when I need it. My usual approach is anxiety-quick practice-improvise-anxiety-short out. I've gotten better at asking over the last two years, but I still need practice at asking for what I need and being the helpee. I got a lesson from my niece today. She's three, and often when she can't do something she goes straight into anxiety-short out mode herself. My sister-in-law has been patiently teaching her to ask for help instead of going straight into wailing meltdown. Today, she couldn't get her bike out of the garage and she said, "Kateri, can you help me? Even when I'm strong, I can't be a Mommy or a Daddy or a Kateri, because when I'm not big enough."

Way to go, kid. That's how you do it.

88.

When my nephew came home from school today, he casually announced "I knew you were here because of your umbrella. If anyone wants raisins for a snack, I have some. It's still raining, but -," tipping his head on one side and squinting at me, " - actually I'd say it was just stopping raining." Then he took off his coat and shoes, went in his room and brought out his latest Lego creation: a long, unfolding grey serpent with poisonous-looking green barbs and a giant club of a head with beady eyes and a forked, rippling tongue (he used a flag from a pirate set for that). I said, "You're getting so good with the designing, this is amazing!" He said, "Well, the more sets I have, the better stuff I can design."

Kid: ONE.
Me: NONE, but SO PROUD.

67.

Today, while I was photographing my niece eating a candy cane in her sleep, I overheard my nephew say, "There's only one part of my body that doesn't like the taste of this, and that's my tongue."

46.

The last two years have been the hardest years of my life. Hard because I made them that way; hard because I looked at my life and realized that I wasn't all the way in it, and I wanted to get all the way in it. I woke up and looked around and knew that I had to change a lot of things. So I set about changing them.

Here's the thing about saying yes: once you start, it becomes an incredible betrayal of what you've already done to stop saying yes. No one warned me about that. It would not have stopped me, in any case. But when I started making changes in my life, I think I believed that was a finite process. Change this thing about my habits, check. Change this thing about my body, check. Change this thing about where I live, what I want, what I do, check, check, check. But as I made these changes and my life opened up before me and I began to know myself, my real self, the way I want to be, the light that poured into my life showed a thousand little cracks and fissures and flaws. All things that needed more yes.

So I've gone on saying yes, and making changes and growing and reshaping and learning. And it has been rough and glorious. It's still rough, and I don't really expect it to stop being rough any time soon. But the glorious is so big, and I'm incredibly grateful for this life that I'm all the way in.

Here's why.

My friends, both here and in Chicago, have cheered me on, have dried my tears, have given me their homes and their helping hands and their loving support. They have literally fed and clothed me, before, during and after the move. I would not be sitting here calm and happy and typing without them. No, seriously, they gave me the laptop, too. My friends, all of them, are tough, tender, smart and daring people, and everything important that I know about being a person, I learned from them.

I love a good man, an amazing man, and he loves me. He delights in my good days, and he lightens my hard days; he tells me his triumphs and struggles, and lets me share in them, too. He makes me think, he makes me laugh, and he never lets me forget that I'm beautiful.

My family, immediate and extended, are more present in my life than ever before. My brother and his wife have been life-savers to me this year, and seeing my niece and nephew every week is a sweet and hilarious joy beyond compare. My parents have brought all of us together through the time they're spending with my grandparents in Virginia. One of my cousins set up a family email list a couple of years ago, and I've been so happy to get to know my (very far-flung) family and their lives through the easy grace of email.

This apartment is warm and light and comfortable and all my own. In an age of want, I'm truly grateful for my home. I know I'm lucky to have it, and the peace and solitude and comfort that it gives me.

I have good work, that I enjoy and that I do well. It connects me to myself, and to other people; it brings me satisfaction and curiosity and new things to think about all the time.

I could keep going indefinitely. There are books to be thankful for, and tools to be grateful for, and Donkey Kong and Sonic the Hedgehog and the gym and my growing love for shrieky metal music. There is the postal service, and Trimet and Netflix and street art and the beautiful bridges of Portland. There is the magic of Google and the stuff they made that pretty much runs my life. But there are also kids to be cuddled, and wine to be poured and pie to be eaten, and you've probably got a turkey in the oven. So I'm going to stop here.

Today is Thanksgiving. I wish you a happy one, and I say thank you. I say yes.

44.

Today, I put on Grandma's apron and baked things for people I love.

32.

"Your pockets are behind you," said my niece, shoving her hands into my jeans and digging around. And then she pulled my pants right down.

day 18.

Today I called my grandmother and asked her if I could have her rolling pin and some of her aprons when she dies. She's been fretting over the sheer volume of things in the house, and what will happen to all of them and where they'll go and if we, the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, have room and/or need of them. Mostly I don't have room and/or need of more things, but I want these pieces of her. I want to keep her in my kitchen. I want to keep the engine of her hospitality and caregiving and endless capacity to bountifully feed anyone who walks through her door. I want to keep the skill of her hands. I want to keep the shape of her beautiful person - which is also mine. My short fingers, I got from my father, and he got them from her. My echoing barrel of a ribcage is hers as well.

She seemed surprised. She asked if there was anything else I wanted from her kitchen; I'm sure there must be, but I couldn't picture anything else. I've watched her prepare dozens of meals, but what I remember is her hands and her wrists, her beautiful long hair pinned up with who knows how many hairpins. Her grace. Her absolutely tiny self standing on a kitchen stool to get a bowl. The way my grandfather would walk through the kitchen and pat her and say, "My sweetheart."

She's so lovely. We tell her constantly. I hope she knows it's true.

day 3.

I spent most of today hanging out with my niece. Since moving to Portland, it's been my great joy to get to spend time with my brother and his family every week. The kids know me pretty well by now. Well enough, in fact, that when I walked in the door this past Monday, Calli said, "I don't want to see Kateri today." Which I took as a sort of badge, because I'm not a novelty anymore. I'm an assumption. She can see me later. That's pretty great.

Today, though, I was in favor. She greeted me this morning with, "Oh, hi, Kateri. Do you want to draw an L with me?" More than anything, kid. (Although, to be fair, I thought she said owl. I was sharply corrected.) 

Watching her learn is amazing. I'm so envious of that elastic three-year-old mind. She doesn't forget anything, ever, and she learns so fast. It's horrifying and thrilling all at once, and sometimes I'll seed a conversation with really obscure stuff just to see when it pops up again. And it always does. Today while she was eating lunch, she was humming and kicking her heels as she usually does during meals, when suddenly she turned sideways, gripped her stomach and yelled, "So cold! I don't have much time!" and then stuffed another bite of hot dog in her mouth and went on humming. While I perished laughing and then told the entire internet. I've no idea where she heard that line, but she filed it away and used it exactly right, with flawless comic timing to boot. Did I mention she's three? 

Anyway, I had a pretty nice day.

time capsule

My paternal grandfather's long recovery this winter has me thinking about my other grandfather, who passed away several years ago. He had Alzheimer's. I spent the last summer before he truly disappeared from us with him and my grandmother in the family summer house. He'd been confused for a while and was beginning to show other signs of deterioration, but they hoped they would be able to make one last summer. I got a job close to the house, doing something easy, and with a kind boss who let me leave without notice to deal with emergencies. As it turned out, the change of venue was too hard on him; his dementia and anxiety and physical health got worse fast and they ended up going home after just a month.

It was a hard month. The house was precarious. The yard was precarious. The 200 year old crazy brick sidewalks were precarious. Grandaddy's mind decayed brutally fast. He slept very little and wandered off into town and put himself in danger and was aggressive and insulting and frightened and mostly deaf and mind-bendingly confused. Until suddenly he wasn't and he would be sitting there perfectly lucid and stricken with knowledge. It was cruel to watch. A conversation with an Alzheimer's patient is a slippery and dizzy thing, and my grandmother wore herself out trying to walk the tightrope between her fear and frustration and the need to soothe him.

I have the utmost respect for the caregivers and family members who live with and visit and love Alzheimer's patients for months and years. That single month was the longest of my life, and one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. I also wouldn't undo it for anything. I'd spent the same two weeks with my grandparents every summer. They were familiar and loved and I know they loved us. Still, I never thought of myself as close to them until that month of messy, exhausting intimacy. They needed me, and that made me happy even while I was miserable.

A few years later, shortly after my grandfather died, I was sorting through a bookshelf in the Nantucket house. It was mostly summer reading - mysteries and period romances and celebrity bios. On the bottom shelf, in a pile of games and jigsaw puzzles, I found a hardcover copy of All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, inscribed to my grandfather by his law partner. It's been my favorite novel since I first read it in college. Grandaddy was a lawyer, and later a judge; one of the main characters in the novel had always made me think of him. I have no idea if he ever read it, but finding it there was a great moment for me. It put him, his whole self, back in that house. That book now sits on my shelf, and is the copy I carry when I reread it.

Remembering all this reminded me that I'd written a poem about it around the same time, so I dug it out to have another look. There are things I'd do differently about this poem now, but that's not how it works; I haven't messed with it. This is the original version.

Nantucket, 2 a.m.

My mother lies awake under ocean sounds

of wind that wake you,

blowing off the Point.

Day-sleep has made you night-walk,

restless.

Strange she does not hear you -

but you do not hear yourself

the creak the last stair makes

when you have left it,

only feeling in your legs the sense

of steps you lost

the sound of long ago.

The kitchen smells of barnacles and

Scotch.

Which case is it you plead tonight

in silence

while the string beneath the naked

kitchen lightbulb swings?

Or do you plead your own

with Hail Marys and Our Fathers, asking

that we hear you even though

you can't hear us?

And is it for my mother that you leave

the light in brightness?

She will find it in the morning and

construct the sound of steps

she didn't hear.

workshop - barbara dill

I meant to post these pictures in December, after Thanksgiving in Virginia with my family, but forgot I had them. This is my friend Barbara's workshop in Richmond. She was a student in my grandfather's woodworking class years ago. They became friends, and have remained close ever since. Barbara has an immense talent for woodwork (her innovative work in multi axis woodturning is amazing). I was getting used to the new phone the weekend that I took these. They're a little scrappy as pictures go, but they're a record of one of my favorite places and I love them.

My adored grandfather is in physical therapy rehab, following a couple of scary falls. My parents, grandmother and a cousin are taking turns spending the night with him so he never has to be alone overnight, for which they are all my heroes. Dad's been sending daily reports of progress and events, and this one came yesterday:

"Mother and Dad were cute together tonight. Dad had secreted a small stack of old valentines in his room Saturday evening (which I had stolen from their home stash earlier that day), and was obviously eager to surprise Mother with them. She had brought in on Sunday some of her old cards to him, but he hadn't looked at any of them yet. So they sat there together, perusing old...valentine sentiments. When Dad reached the end of his pile, he wheeled his chair over to Mother with fresh declarations of affection and a kiss. Or two. :

That's the sweet stuff. These are two of my favorite pictures of my grandparents. (Grandma apparently disliked the photographer in the camp photo. I love her saddle shoes.)

hunting for truffles.

I mentioned that I raided the family photo collection while I was visiting my grandparents in Richmond. I only got through about 10% of it, and even that took me most of a day. The box I dug through was loose pictures from no particular era, and I found treasures ranging from an exquisite daguerreotype in a little blue velvet case("Darling Mother, 1856" - Grandma had no idea who it was, or even which side of the family it came from) to a Christmas card from 1991 featuring an elderly family friend sitting on Santa's lap and smiling the happiest, most ridiculous smile ever. It was a pretty good day.

There was one treasure that stood out from the rest. About two thirds of the way through the box, I found this beauty and pulled it out and waved it around and said "See? See? THIS is why I snoop!" Grandma let me keep this one, and I'm in love with it.

This is my grandparents in 1939, the year before they were married. I found a lot of good stuff, but this was the prize, and well worth spending a day in the dust. More pictures still to come - stay tuned for scandalous Great Aunt Virginia!

i raided grandma's photo stash.

These are me, age 3. Lots more to follow, eventually. My plan is to set up a flickr account just for family history. If I start now and add a few things at a time, it will be totally manageable. Window 4 now accepting bets on the likelihood of that.

70

My darling grandparents (my dad's parents) celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. While we were all in Idaho for Faith's wedding, Dad showed us this celebration ad he put together for their local newspaper. I'd never seen this photograph before, and I love it. Isn't Grandma beautiful?

fire good. tree pretty.

(I know, I know. That's wrong.)

This year for New Year's, I traveled to New England to celebrate with most of my family, and enjoy a bittersweet goodbye to the landscape where I grew up. My siblings and I live in four different time zones, and my parents will be moving to Virginia when my father retires next summer, so we wanted to have one last holiday fling on our old stomping grounds. I usually celebrate New Year's in Chicago, so I've missed out on more than a decade of family traditions for this holiday. For the first time since it was instituted, I got to be there for the New Year's Eve Tree Lighting. As in on fire, with a torch. I left home long before the year my brother and younger sisters, along with the friends of our childhood, set fire to the Christmas tree (outdoors. on purpose.) in an impromptu celebration that has persisted ever since. It's been finessed a bit since the first bonfire, and when we got out to the lake the tree was propped up all pretty in a little stand of snow in a clearing on the ice.

We had appetizers and wine. There was a rousing game of Broom Ball, (with the looney lights of La Salette in the background) and some minor injuries.

We had dinner and played games and caught up with old friends. We missed Tim, who wasn't able to be there and whose absence was like a deafening silence - but I sent him some nice guilt pics so he would know we were thinking of him.

Jesse's heart aches:

Bethany's very unhappy:

Kirsten and Faith are madder than hell and
they're not going to take it anymore:

At about 11:30, a crew went out onto the ice to get ready. At 11:59, I started a stop-watch. We counted down the last 10 seconds and Jesse lit the tree up.

A smoky sputter, and then an evergreen blaze of glory:

What a nice way to ring in the new year. I had planned a whole year-in-review type post, at least in bullet points, but that feels overwhelming to me at the moment and I'm just going to skip it. This is what happened on the actual Eve. If I think of other stuff I just have to tell you about, I'm sure I'll find a way to let you know. Happy New Year and all the best to you and those you love in 2010!

p.s. Here are a couple of other pictures from the trip. It snowed the entire time I was in New Hampshire. And I found a real live phone booth! Old school.