art is emotional.




Nan and Papa in front of their soon-to-be home.

 

Friday afternoon I cut out of work early and drove the five hours Northeast to my grandparent's house, because even at twenty five, when given the option of this or nearly anything else, I'll still choose a visit to grandmother's.

We've always been close, although there have been times where a lag between us speaking grows too long and uncomfortable and requires repair.  Still, we reach out to each other to bridge the gap. Because we're family, and we have to, yes, but also because we choose each other.

When, a few years ago, they sold the lake cottage where I spent all of my childhood summers getting sunburned and running wild, I was sure I could never forgive them; I cried myself to sleep for months mourning the place that held so many of my happiest memories. Yet there I was on the day they moved into their new home, helping carry boxes down the perilous stairs and holding a hand for morale and support.

They mean so much that even the fleeting thought of them one day being taken away from me brings involuntary tears to my eyes before I squelch it and move on with my day. A reaction too powerful to really ignore despite the refusal of my stubborn mind to acknowledge the thought.

This weekend, we had a great visit. We dined and cocktailed and chatted and heart-to-hearted. It was everything I needed it to be and it always is. I didn't want to leave, but then again, I've never wanted to leave. They're my biggest fans, so interested in everything I have to say, I feel like a celebrity in their midst. They're equally as fascinating to me. I've grown fixated on asking any question that pops into my mind, determined to learn as much of them and their lives as I can. I attempt to memorize everything so that nothing will ever be lost, no matter the way time and change try to erase things.

After dinner on Friday night we wandered the eclectic downtown area of Ann Arbor, on our way to the ice cream shop as has become our tradition. They're spoiling me, but I think secretly they're partly glad for my visits as a way to excuse generous ice cream consumption. Either way, we're all winning.

We were chatting as we passed a frame shop and I mentioned a map I bought several years ago of the lake that fed my childhood, and how I'd been meaning to have it framed, but it keeps getting lost in the shuffle of life.  Try as I might not to, I always end up bring up the lake when we're together, pushing the tender place we all have on our hearts. What happened next was odd, and heartwrenching.

My papa looked down at my nan and they had a short conversation as if I wasn't even there, and then seamlessly incorporated me back in.

Papa: Nance, I think Sara should get the painting of the cottage, she's always been the one that loved it the most.

Nan: Yes, that sounds right.

Papa: How does that sound, Sara?

Me: I love the painting, of course I'd love to have it. But that's so far away, I've never even thought of it.

Papa: Well it won't be for a while, we're hanging it in the new house. We've still got some life left in us. Just, you know, when the time comes.

Me: I can't really think about that without crying.

Papa: Well, okay. Enough then.

As I am literally choking back tears. I'm just not ready for them to start divvying up their things.

The painting in question is one they had commissioned several years ago, of the cottage and my Nan's garden there in peak form, a reminder they had created for when they were spending winter or fall in their homes in Florida or Ohio.

It's a large picture and it hangs over the fireplace of their sole remaining home in a suburb of Ann Arbor, which they're now selling to move into a smaller home in a retirement community this summer, a fact that equally breaks my heart and infuriates me. I can't stand to think of them getting older and older until they'll eventually leave me.

I just can't even consider it.

They're downsizing for the move to their new, considerably smaller house, and things are being sold and claimed by my dad and his brothers. They're purging their things, and I can't help but think it one of the saddest things a person will ever do in their lives. After a lifetime of continuously, and often accidentally, accumulating all the stuff that makes a life, getting rid of it, putting it into younger hands. Letting things go.

While I'm thrilled at the prospect of having the beautiful painting, a reminder of my favorite place and of my favorite people hanging in my own home someday, I genuinely hope the day never, ever comes when it actually becomes mine.

It was an emotional weekend.

my happiest place.

kiss me (i have NO idea if i'm) irish.

My knowledge of my heritage is what one could refer to as patchy, at best. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that apparently my ancestors would mate with anyone that hung around and looked interested. At least no one can call us bigots! So I'm most likely some sort of European mutt, which is fine because I'm like, omgz totally one-hundo percent American. GO USA!


As a child I was extremely inquisitive. If you've ever played the "why?" game to annoy the shit out of whomever you're with, then you get the idea. So naturally, I was curious about where I came from... and not in the biblical sense.

This all stemmed from a single interaction. In kindergarten, June, this boy in my class, could and did proudly proclaim that his family was from India and we spent like 20 kindergartner minutes (read: more than my attention span would normally allot for a single task) learning about about his heritage and family traditions and cool clothes, etc, etc. I was jealous. I was insanely jealous of the fact that I could not one-up all his culture with our common Christmas tree, Easter-egg hunts, and pathetic Thanksgiving turkey. ALL OF THE OTHER KIDS HAD THOSE THINGS. UGH, they were used, lackluster, jaded. I, of course, wanted proof that I got to be more than the other kids when it came to a little thing known as worldliness.


Can we see now how the compulsion towards turning everything in life into a competition was already forming?


Yes. We. Can.


I can actually see my miniature self speaking very calmly to my mother from the backseat of the car as to not alarm her or let her catch on to the heirarchal thought stream spewing through every channel of my mind.


"Mom, where are we from?"


"Your Daddy and I are from Columbus, Ohio, and you were born in Pennslyvania. You know that stuff, silly!"


"I know where we're from in AMERICA, Mom. I mean where we our people from BEFORE us. Like your great grandparents."


"You know what, honey, that would be a great thing to talk about with your grandma and grandpa or Nana and Papa next time you see them."




AVOIDANCE.




My mother saw my innocent curiosity and met me with COMPLETE AVOIDANCE. To her credit, I was high-maintenence child, and the best method to prevent an extremely involved family project was probably to casually dismiss some of my more labor-intensive queries.




Travesty, anyone?






From that point on, I was constantly hounding every family member I could corner for clues about where I was from. Okay, maybe not constantly,  but whenever I remembered June, or not gettting answers, or not feeling as awesome because another kid had something I didn't. The way I saw it, I still had one very important factor on my side, potential. Since I wasn't told I was basically the same as everyone else that fled Europe or wherever they were before to pursue something better with the grand illusion of a much better livelihood, I wasn't merely that. Not yet.


Occasionally, I would get random tidbits of information to piece together, such as my mother proclaiming that she's "mostly Irish!" or my great-grandmother stinking up her home making cabbage rolls that ew, gross, I wouldn't even taste and thus I would learn that she was Hungarian... thus, so was I! I learned my Nan's maiden name was German and some of our cousins on that side spoke German, so we were somewhat Germish. German? Yeah, that's better. There was some talk of "lineage" at one point at a family wedding where everyone was plastered and I think partial English blood was discussed. I was patching it together.


I'm a mutt. Whatever.


And then... I started not caring about it as much. I worried about things like boys and cars and clothes and sneaking out to go streaking with my friends. Things I could really win at, and that were in my control.


Until last summer.




Last summer I was visiting my fraternal grandparents, Nan and Papa at their home in Ann Arbor. We basically played Scrabble, walked around U of M while they told me stories of their glory days there and when they met, sat around drinking cocktails, and looked through thousands of old family photographs.


I honestly had no idea my Nan was schlepping around 8927348937 pictures from house to house that they moved around the country. As I was looking through them, and she was encouraging me to take any of them I wanted, because, hello, time to get rid of some of that baggage, I came across a bonafide breakthrough.


I'm sitting next to my WASPY seventy-three year old grandmother looking through snapshot 376376 of 2837498374. I'm sneezing because everything. is. so. damn. dusty.




I HAVE ALLERGIES, YEESH I HATE IT SO MUCH.




Anyway, yeah, allergies can go blow a whale.




We're sitting on the couch together and we come across a old ass photo of a man that turns out to be her father. And then my dear, dear, Nan, my biggest influence and person I look up to most on this earth, says offhandedly:


"Oh, this is right after he came over from the old country."


My ears perk up ever so slightly. "Oh, yes, Germany, right?"


"No no no, Sarabara, from Romania of course."






WHAT IN THE EVER-LOVING HELL?




Romania.




Old country = Romania.


And that is the story of how I found out that I'm badass and a vampire and my family is from ROMANIA. Don't get my wrong, I fully realize the whole vampire thing is kind-of worn out and quite frankly kind of annoying ever since Twilight pretty much stole the soul that was the coolness of vampires. But take a long look at yourself, and really dig deep into your soul and answer honestly when I ask what I'm about to ask.

Wouldn't you TOTALLY ride out the awesome and cool vampire-darkness heritage you JUST found out about?

I knew you would.

Now I just need to find that June kid and let him know that actually, I win. Again.

But since, according to my mother, I'm at least a little Irish too, I'll be celebrating all the snakes leaving the Emerald Isle or whatever all this madness is about today. Just in case. Wouldn't want to make my ancestors feel unappreciated.

If you see me tomorrow, be gentle.

XO Sare.

growing some green.

I'm going to be a real-life gardener!!!!!!!

 

 

Having a a garden to tend to is on the life-goal list. However, since I'm kind of a vagabond and always on the run renting, I've never felt compelled to sink a bunch of money into a garden that in three or four or six months I'll be leaving, forever. 

 

This is kind of an unfortunate fact, since I've been semi-obsessed with plants and soil- dwelling growth-forms since I can remember.

 

You see, it all started because my grandparent's had this lake-cottage in northern Michigan while I was growing up and I'd spend most of my summers there. It was the best thing, ever. The place in all honesty holds about 85% of my fondest memories from not just childhood, but life. STILL. So anyway, without dwelling on the fact that the cottage has now been sold to a pair of annoying young-rich from Texas who don't even LIVE THERE ALL SUMMER, thus sending myself into a downward spiral of depression that would be further perpetuated by reading all my old letters from friends and lovers and listening music from my late high school/early college  Bright Eyes phase, while subsisting on nothing but Nutella and boxed wine for the next several weeks until Manfriend runs an intervention on me, I'm going to get back on track.

 

My grandmother, we'll call her Nan, because that's what I call her, had the most glorious of gardens at said lake-house. Talk about colorful. This woman has a true green thumb. I would follow her around, learning plant varieties and helping her weed for HOURS every day. As a semi-ADD child, this was a fairly major accomplishment. Anyway, she'd teach me things and point out new buds on plants and we'd spend a large portion of each day tooling around the garden.

 

QUALITY TIME.

 

So anyway, that's where my love of gardening developed, and since I'm only a quasi-adult and not a full-blown-adult, I still use my parents' address as my "permanent residence" and I rent, so gardening hasn't really been in the cards for the past seven or so years. 

 

BUT, I do have several plants that I've been schlepping around with me for years, the most impressive of which is named Cash, who I acquired my sophomore year in college when he was merely twelve inches in height and is now AT LEAST four feet tall. And yes, I name my plants, and I also talk to them, because they're practically pets to me. Cash is getting REAL heavy. And I have to keep putting him in bigger pots so that his roots can breathe an whatnot. It's a love-love situation. I've kept him alive for SIX YEARS.

 

 

SIX YEARS. That's three times longer than my longest relationship. Cash and I are a TEAM. We've come a long way from me forgetting to water him for days at a time then stumbling home drunk and pouring half of my before-bed beer in his pot.  I think he stayed alive then just because I was willing to share. And a 19 year-old sharing their last beer with a plant in need of hydration is nothing short of heartwarming.

 

There are a couple other plants too, but Cash is my finest acheivement.

 

ANYWAY, I've been not only ansty for Spring to get here and defeat Winter, but I've also had this compulsion to dig around in the soil and deposit some seeds lately, which is kind of a drag because my lease is up in the middle of May and Katherine is moving to South America to escape the shitty state of affairs here teach English and frolic happily for an undisclosed amount of time down south. Manfriend will also be moving relatively soon, so that location is also a bust. 

My my desire to breed new life in a location completely outside of my own body cannot be squelched. 

 

There's a great deal of pride for me in making something grow, giving it life.... something that ISN'T a human child. And apparently in being really creepy about it, too.

 

So, this weekend, Manfriend purchased me a mini-greenhouse.

 

And I almost lost my shit right there, because WOAHHHH.

 

I'm now the owner of a mini-greenhouse!

This is going to be AWESOME, look at all those spout growing-holes.  






I plan on growing vegetables, so I can feel like I'm 'living off the land' and whatnot. 






I have no idea how long it's going to be before I need to start transplanting these little suckers, but I'm really hoping I have my new living situation figured out before their roots need more space to grow and I have to transplant all of them, because if I have to re-pot all of them before I move it's going to be like 348972398473978 pots and a total pain in the ass..... if they even grow to begin with.... which they will, obviously.






After all,  Cash survived!


I'll let you know how it goes. 


XO Sare