we are a happy family

 Two years ago today, I was really far away from home and my Grandpa passed away after a two month long battle with cancer, and now I'm feeling reverent.

   We visited St Paul's cathedral this morning, and were prompted to write about how it made us feel as a source of memory. To the English, it is a symbol of endurance and hope, a firm reminder of withstanding age and war. A woman named Fiona (who had ridiculously funny toes) took us around with headsets and taught us about the five buildings that had been demolished and reconstructed on the site, all the renovations to the current structure ensued by the bombings of WWII, the art that decorated the nave and columns and vaults and apses,  and the plethora of monuments and tribute statues. When I sat down to think about it all, I found myself thinking about things that stay vs things that go, like statues vs humans; stone, a seemingly eternal element on this here earth, vs Grandpa, who is gone.A poem that Rilke wrote about Rodin's sculptures is coming to mind, I can't remember the name of it. 

As an artist, I believe it is in my nature to appreciate things that have been carved or molded, woven or written, painted or constructed for the preservation of memory. I wonder how often we try to preserve the right things, though. I am thinking about all this effort put into preserving St Paul's threatened history with big stone monuments and paint and embroidery.  It almost felt like it was built to commemorate it's own history and society's "greats" more than God, for whom its purpose originated. 

   Maybe I'm just thinking this way because I'm thinking about this Grandpa of mine. I love the ephemeral nature our bodies have, that we come to earth and have this short time to make our impression, leave our footprint in the soil. In the end, when someone we love passes on, he or she has left us with the bare artifacts of what determines a beautiful life.
   Grandpa Harry's monuments are in things like his books, his journals, his glasses, his piano (and all three songs he used to play on it), his flannel shirts, and his family, all the things that he gave himself to.  

 I wanted to have some Grandpa to remember today, the quiet Grandpa who has deep thoughts and an outstanding vocabularic library. So, I emailed Michelle(my trusty soul mate cousin who loves literature, music, and all things English) for some of his journal. Grandpa was  a dedicated diarist, and Shell has been transcribing his mountains of journals to publish and give to our family (when I have my official and bound copies, I've already resolved that they will be the first things I think to save if my house ever starts on fire). 

He wrote some pretty thoughts about living on the day after my Mama was born:

I have often lost myself in meditation of birth and death and what lies in between - how long it  appears from this end, and how short from the other - the wheres, whens and whys of the beginning and the end, the problems of one life, the achievements, the kinds of world in which it shall be enclosed.  But today there was no time for philosophy. 

It makes me want to love and experience and breathe (and write) with all the eloquence of a full liver (in this instance, "liver" refers to a person who lives. not body part, ok). 

To wrap up this small tribute to the Papa, here are some favorite memories:



- deep and vibratoesque humming (oh what a beautiful morning)


            - socks (for some reason I'm loving remembering his socks on the den carpet)

- slightly forceful head pats that synced with "broo-kie johnson" (a pat for each syllable) 

(baby me and the G-unit)

-his glasses/hearing aids that were perpetually getting lost or chewed up by my dog

(I love this picture, I was defending myself for wanting duck boots -the ones on my feet- for Christmas. They had ducks on them and my Mom reluctantly purchased them for thinking they were so so ugly and bad, and it made Grandpa laugh - look at him, he's SO CUTE! (and for the record, I don't think I've had more compliments on any other article of clothing that I've owned in my life, thank you.)

-his head tilted back at the piano, peering through his glasses to decipher the beginning of Claire de L'une (just the beginning)

i love these buttons. credit for this patriotic portrait of eternal love goes to michelle 

- and his song: I love Brookie Johnson, Brookie Johnson loves me, we are a happy family

Happy Twenty-Eighth of September

(here's some smiling from the top of St Paul's, this view was splendid, people)