Granny pays a visit

Sitting in the living room, I can feel the air changing around me as I turn to look out the window just in time to see the leaves starting to sway and hit the front window.  Distant sounds of thunder roll as the scent fills my nose; slightly acidic, warm, musty and thick with rain.  The front screen door starts tapping as air whips around the framework.  I watch her briskly walk past me to secure the latch.  “It’s coming!” her excited voice announces as she smiles, looking up at the sky.  She looks at me and I at her and the words I was thinking escape her lips.  ”Let’s go out back!” and away we go; through the kitchen, out the screen door, through the garage, out a second door and to the back porch, overlooking a large green yard with two trees, one swaying bravely, the other, indifferent to the approaching onslaught, dead from too many intimate encounters with lightning.  Together we stand and watch the black clouds roll in, the light of day dimming down, turning the midday to dusk.  Tree tops dance as the rain arrives.  I grab hold of her, excited and trying to be brave but a little scared.  Texas summer storms never gently saunter in to meet you.  They boil for what seems like forever and then explode at your doorstep.  As the lightning starts to flash without pause, I hear her say, ”Oh, isn’t it beautiful?”  Sometimes, I would be torn between staying  inside alone with the sound of the loud drops on the roof, like jelly beans being thrown down, or running outside to be at the safety of her side.  On the occasions when I did stay inside for the duration, I would peek at her through the kitchen window and hear her voice over the noise, “Oh, you should see this, Amy – it’s incredible!”  without a hint of worry about anything in the world.  On this day, I ventured out to face it with her, eyes wide open and laughing nervously.

My eyes shoot open and I’m met with the clock.  Just after midnight.  I can still smell it and I tightly close my eyes, trying desperately not to forget.  When my brain decides to conjure up a dream with her in it, I savour it.  I try to sit with it for a minute before I allow anything else to enter in.  I remember how passionate she was and how she taught me her mantra in life.  “Oh, you should see this, Amy – it’s incredible!” And it is.  The best dreams are the ones where I not only hear her but when she looks at me as she did in this one.  I remember this as I whisper “granny,” close my eyes and drift off again.

Remember When…

Over the past several days, I have been listening to old recordings that my brother had converted to DVD’s for me.  One of the things he loved to do was to hide a tape recorder in a Christmas Tree during Christmas morning or tuck one in a book shelf and press “record” without any of us knowing.  He has started to send me these recordings.  Some of them are of me, around the time that I was first discovering what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  I’m reminded of how I have changed in many ways, and in many others; how I haven’t.  Wanting to be center stage has not been one of the things that has changed.  I have had the pleasure of hearing recordings of my late granny who was my biggest fan and to whom I would perform entire “concerts” while on her back porch.  I great motivator for me is remembering when I discovered how much I loved to sing, and to perform.  Tapping in to those memories of when the mind first sparked with the idea of what you wanted to do can bring you back to those moments for a short time and remind you again of those joys; using the past to keep you moving forward.