on the mountain

☆ September 2, 2010

getting firewood

scent of sunwarmed pine sap

light dark damp dry thick bright deep

in the forest live secrets and dreams

A Gift

☆ August 31, 2010

My sister came to visit. Along with her cute self, she brought me this spinning wheel. I inherited this spinning wheel from Grammy, my grandmother, when she died four years ago. This grandmother is not to be confused with svensto, my other grandmother, who is still alive and well and blogging at age 90.

Grammy lived to 90 as well. She lived on her own, self-sufficient and driving until the very end. All I ever saw her consume were Cheetos, rum and Coke, and Misty menthol lights. When I lived in Santa Barbara and then San Francisco, I’d drive up to visit her in Sacramento. We’d smoke and play cards and look at all her old photographs and tell eachother our most outrageous stories.

About a week before her 90th birthday, she had a stroke, and died a few days after her birthday. Since I am selfish and honest, I did not go to see her with the rest of my extended family during her last week. We spoke on the phone, but, since my brain works in pictures, I didn’t want to remember her strapped to a bed with tubes all over. Selfish and honest, as I said, but I’ve never regretted my choice to stay in Wyoming as she died. She was a rebel herself, she understood.

She left me this spinning wheel and all the old photographs we used to pour over. The spinning wheel was her mother’s; Grammy didn’t even know how to use it. It has been in a bag, in pieces, at my parents’ house for the last four years, but earlier this summer, my sister drove out to Seattle and picked it up for me while she was there, and then brought it with her when she came to visit.

This will be my winter project: learning to spin.
And this is Grammy, the James Dean of grandmothers: