Definitely Officially Noteworthy

My grandmother’s birthday is in a little over a week so I went to go visit her on Thursday night. Since I can remember, visits to any older member of my family are always the same. We talk about things we’ve talked about a million times already, like, what I’m doing with my life, whether or not I’m dating anyone, how my health is keeping up, etc. It’s usually forced, painfully repetitive and well, you know, shitty. I think this might be a common problem among people who've chosen the same area of study as I have. What is there to say when you're a creative writer or someone who analyzes art, you know? I have no big angry bosses to bitch about, no office work to in well into the night, no suits or ties or casual Fridays. This is a very independent and risky thing that I'm doing and often, those facts are a huge cause of stress and worry when it comes to my very traditional family. I get tired of finding new ways to say that I don’t really know what I’m doing and I’m okay with that. And I can’t very well say that I’m getting so little sleep that I often get off at the wrong train stop on my way to and from the city and that on top of it all I’m not officially dating someone but I’m definitely officially doing someone, right? They’d worry themselves sick! And maybe call me a whore.

This time, however, my almost eighty year old grandmother who still drives herself around in her little Corolla, goes golfing and plays Mahjong for real money every Friday, made me genuinely laugh over noodles and tea. She recently hired a maid to come dust her house once a month for sixty dollars. This probably doesn’t seem funny to you, but if you saw my tiny little grandma, leaning back in her chair, sipping on green tea and proclaiming, “I’m living the good life, now!” I think you’d have to suppress a little giggle or two, too. Especially if she told you that her maid, Doris, is a seventy year old woman. I was shocked: “Grandma! You hired an OLD LADY to clean your house when it’s already clean all of the time?” She smiled and said, “Chelsi, I’ll have you know that Doris is very agile for her age. Just like me.” I just about died.

I’m telling this story because, as you've probably guessed, for the longest time I dreaded conversations with her. I’m sure she was being overly fussy and I was being overly sensitive, but she used to always make me feel like I wasn’t good enough. She liked to rave about her step grandchildren, the ones who are gymnasts on full-ride scholarships to Davis, but with me, it was more like I was always in the hot seat. It just seemed like having a granddaughter who’s into hippie shit like liberal arts and prose wasn’t that thrilling for her, and I took her endless questions about it as a desperate search for a little nugget of something to be proud of. I’m not sure what did it, but something in her (and possibly me) has changed, and now when I look at her I see so much of myself.

Toward the end of our dinner she pulled out a little plastic container full of some chocolates she brought back from her recent trip to France. And as we sat there nibbling on them, she talked in depth about how she felt when she saw the Mona Lisa and the beaches of Normandy and I thought, that, that right there, that love for things like art and travel because of the way they seem to nourish your soul, that’s me. And I’ll never be able to explain how much I love that we share that.