Maybe I’m not the only one who notices
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 |My grandfather and I discussed writing. I told him how many novels I had to read for just one literature class in Oxford and he told me, “baby, it takes me so long to get through one page, stumbling through all those words. The only way I’ll ever read a long book is if someone finds a good, long western and buys it for me.”
He would read it just because someone had given it to him, if nothing else. He’d struggle through the small print and tedious scenic descriptions because he wouldn’t want to waste someone’s kind intentions. There was a pleasant pause in our conversation, and he sat rocking in his chair while I flipped through a magazine that was sitting on their crystal dining room table. That table always seemed so impractical to me, but it made my grandmother happy because it sparkled and made my grandfather happy because it made my aunt happy who had bought it for them. My grandfather’s arm shot up (in slow motion) and he shook his finger in the air a few times. “I have something for you baby…” he said. “I thought maybe you’d like to read it. I found my great grandmother’s journal. We were hiding it until her daughter died—she wrote some things about how they didn’t get along…Let me go get it.” I smiled. I smiled because I was genuinely too excited not to smile. “Oh really?” I said as he made his way out of the room. I was excited. I was thrilled, really—to read someone’s deepest thoughts. To find treasures inside written memories or poems or even an old “To-do List.”
