journal-12/18/00

12/18/00

i smell my grandmother, with her little tight-lipped "hm-hm-hm" laugh, drinking hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick peeking out of the top of the faded orangish-gold mug sitting in her dull yellow wide-wale corduroy chair. she's rocking, with her legs crossed, and we're watching football before the big christmas dinner, and uncle jack is there and so is sister, and the three of them are sharing stories about growing up on the farm in east texas while we kids squirm as we try to listen, too busy concentrating on turkey and stuffing and homemade gravy and all the fixins, cherry-o pie for dessert, along with chocolate pecan pie and fudge, and the olive cheeseball sitting right in front of us begging to be spread on the crackers...

i have such difficulty departing from the traditional dinner-- to me, it serves as a reminder of times past, on 535 northill drive in richardson, texas, when all of my world was a dead-end street and that 3 bedroom home (not just a house)...

sometimes i have the most intense longing for those times... sometimes i have the most intense longing for my grandmother's smile-- just one more time, her kind words, and the way she said "darlin'" like no one else could...

when i think of her, i am always a little girl-- i adored her, and she adored me. i suppose i'll always be somebody's little girl--

but for now, i'm just

me.

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