“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
“I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired, and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells, and run my stick along the public railings — and make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain… and pick the flowers in other people’s gardens… and learn to spit.”
The old woman’s promise appeals to me. I’ve enjoyed purposefully wearing mismatched earrings on many occasions (though always of the same metal or color). When people notice, they are usually too polite to mention it (but I can see it in their eyes), and so I pretend not to notice that they noticed, and this game amuses me. It is a small, secret eccentricity, a harmless diversion or rebellion from a buttoned up, orderly public life.
“You can wear terrible shirts and grow fat and eat three pounds of sausages at a go, or only bread and pickle for a week… and hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry, and pay our rent and not swear in the street, and set a good example for the children. We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.”
By and large, my husband and I do live very happy, orderly lives. Every minute is accounted for and, in turn, counts. We take the dogs to the dog park so reliably that Saturday mornings they run downstairs upon waking and sit by the drawer that has their collars in it. Then we have lunch and do an activity with the (very young) Madison grandchildren. We have routines and we hold to them to keep our lives functional and meaningful, our hectic schedules manageable.
“But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised, when suddenly I am old and start to wear purple.”
At least once a month, I take my oldest grandson on adventures. I drive to Chicago and “borrow” Patrick. Then the two of us go off on our own holiday weekend. Patrick is nine years old now (we started this “free to be you and me” weekend tradition when he was four), and he is still wildly eccentric himself. As is our habit, we don’t usually have an agenda before we begin our days together — other than a scheduled Boy Scout commitment or riding lesson. Then, the rest of the time is ours.
Sometimes we wind up at Lamb’s farm, sitting in the dirt, brushing sheep. One time, I took him into the middle of a cornfield on a whim. We like forested areas, looking for bullfrogs, and on these days, we do not care if our shirts match our pants, or if we’ve brushed our hair. We are too eager to see what the day brings to interrupt the morning with such technicalities.
The only consistency in our time together is that we end each day with Three Questions, when he can ask me three consecutive questions that he wants truthful answers for. No question is disallowed, so that’s when we’ve talked about God and death and angels and bank mortgage men. His world is literal, and if his mother mentions that she is expecting bills in the mail, he’ll hold (for me) the obvious question about why men named Bill would be brought to their doorstep by the mailman. Oftentimes, I can put his mind at rest — other times, we just have a great laugh or marvel at the unknowable — like what heaven is like.
“I’m glad that you are getting so mature and so accomplished,” I told him recently, after a particularly good horseback riding lesson. “But I worry a bit about you getting too mature in the next few years.”
“You mean you’re nervous about when I become a teenager, because teenagers would rather spend time with their peers, and they think they are the coolest people in the world — too cool to spend time with older people?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” I admit.
“That won’t happen to us,” he assures me. “We’ll always be best friends, Nana. We’re different.”
Just yesterday, it was Patrick who needed a little extra reassurance, waiting to have an MRI procedure because he’s been a very sick little boy this summer and we’re all trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of why. I showed up unexpectedly to give him an extra hand to hold, meeting him and his mom (my daughter) at the hospital.
“I wish you lived next door to me, Nana,” he said, cuddling into me. “But,” he added thoughtfully, “maybe it’s good that you live so far away, so that I don’t take our time together for granted.”
“We wouldn’t ever want to do that,” I agreed. “I know every minute that I spend with you is out of the ordinary and special.”
“Yes, our time together is very unique.” (Yes, he does talk like that. Precisely like that.)
“I’m coming back Friday,” I remind him.
“What will we do?” he asks.
“Have an adventure,” I promise.
“Yes, an adventure,” he replies, eyes merry. “I’ve been thinking that we should go to Pennsylvania for a ghost hunting expedition there. They have an abandoned asylum where 10,000 children were housed, and sadly, more than half of them never left. Bill Baldini of CBS did a report on it that blew the lid off Pennsylvania’s best kept secret. They say it’s haunted and I think we should investigate to see if there really is paranormal activity there.”
A trip like that would take a bit of planning, I tell him — particularly because this year he’s refusing to board a plane (his trip to Ireland soured him on them). “By the time we drove there, we’d have to turn around and come back. We need more time than a weekend to drive to Pennsylvania. But it’s doable if you want to do it later this summer.”
“Okay,” he concedes. “Maybe we’ll look for ghosts closer to home in the meantime — in Illinois or Wisconsin. So remember to bring a flashlight. We might want to go ghost hunting after dark.”
Perhaps this Friday I shall bring along a walking stick that I might adorn with pictures of angels and bullfrogs. Patrick is still young enough that it would amuse rather than embarrass him to see me brandishing it. Perhaps we will, while eating lunch at Ruby Tuesday, get “dance spasms” — those sudden attacks of rhythm that embarrass his mother because they cause he and me to flail our arms and heads to muzak while sitting in our booth seats.
There is no predicting what we will do or where we will go or stay or what his three questions will be.
And then I will come home, back to Madison, on Sunday night, and check in with my sweet husband and adoring dogs. I’ll organize my receipts and check my calendar for lunches and meetings, and write my blog and cross everything off my list. Check, check, check. I’ll sit in my sanctuary next to a life-size photo of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter (my muse) and gaze out the window, staring wistfully at my neighbor’s beautiful flowers and I’ll wonder again, as I often do, if she would miss a few… and sigh, when I decide that she would and that I still care that she would, but that’s okay, too, as I still one foot planted firmly in both worlds.
“Warnings” is written by Jenny Joseph
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