grandmother

1. i think that with her siblings dead and her husband dead and her house sold, she has nothing left to live for, and my grandfather shot himself when he was in a similar position...
2. i think that she is frightened about the lack of control in her life, and depressed by the lack of options, and i think she just wants to go home
   
3. i think it is merciful to let her go home
4. she never said she was proud of me directly, she never said she loved me directly, she never said that she was sorry to me directly,
   
5. i have so few memories of her, and maybe a handful of those are positive, she brought us to dine at the calgary tower once, and i remember when we went to shushwap, and she kept us entertained in the car, and i remember going to the zoo sometimes, and i remember these art books for kids she used to buy us, and i remember the 200 dollar cheques for xmas and bday.
   
6. i havent gotten a cheque for xmas and bday in 5 years
   
7. she had this way of destroying you, of destroying anything you were proud of, anything that was important to you, with a quiet sentence...she was cruel, more cruel, more emotionally devestating to my father then me, but still
   
8. she still maintains power, she came up for my confirmation, at the last year of high school, because i asked her to, and she told me that this should be the last, now that i made a commitment, it should be my only commitment, i think one of the reasons why i am still a theist because of that
   
9. i think that my openness, my desire for transparency comes from negative lessons she taught me, she was a puzzle box, she had no feelings
   
10. one of the best memories i had, was her comforting me when i hurt my sister by accident, and she came down to the basement, where i was weeping, and told me i had to be more careful
    
11. i am never careful, with money, with sex, with things, with my heart, because she was so careful, so tight and difficult
    
12. i remember going to a therapist once, and spending much time in those first sessions on my grandmother--and the doctor told me i was transferring to other people, it took me years after that session to be aware that her presence was so large, that even seeing her once a year at most, she controlled me/us? (mother gets 1 or 2k a month from her, and that money is about control, my grandmother controlls)
13. there are good things too, she taught me how to look at a painting, how to dress a room, how to dress a body, how to address a thank you card, how to hold a fork, which wine went with which meal, how to mix a perfect gin and tonic, the purpose and effective use of discreet jewelry, the economic power of a housewife, how to be amibitous, how to freeze people, the effectiveness of silence, the colour of polaroids, how to shoot film, how important it is to read the paper ever morning, how to privilege non fiction over fiction, how books furnish a room, how to look good in trousers, how to hide growing up poor, how to social climb, how to go from hardscrable farm to old money in one generation, and also, how to be old money when you didnt have any--she always had money, of course, but being an upper empire loyalist and still feel comfortable back on the farm, other things to: how to order a meal at a country club, that steak should be eaten with out sauce and bloody, the glories of aspic, how if you like something a reproduction is as powerful as the real thing, of a good vobaulary, of formal speech, of the right words for the right people, of marrying above yr station, how to work a room, how to eat with one hand and have a cocktail in the other.
    
14. she taught me things in absence as well--i brought some of it up a little before, but she taught me the power of bluntness, of fucking, of queerness, of camp, of kitsch, the redemptive power of not only bad taste but the shambolic, the quixotic, the lost cause, mercy over justice,
    
15. when i saw katherine hepburn, when i followed isabella blow, when i read the diaries of the mitfords, when i went to church at saint johns, when i absorbed the poetry of robert frost or wallace stevens, there was my grandmother, i call her a wasp bitch, and i know that sounds disrespectful, but to have the strength of a grand matriach requires a little bitchery...
    
16. i wish that raymond met her