I remember the little things
Sitting in my grandparents Cadillac on the way to breakfast in the morning. We always left at 8. The morning news radio would be playing and my ears were constantly filled with the sound of Rush Limbaugh and the latest predicament or crisis at hand. They would play older music sometimes, too. The classy kind that they would have listened to when they were dating. Only the best; Frank Sinatra, Franky Lane, the old westerns with the best stories. That was such a huge part of my childhood.
I remember looking out the window a lot.
I liked that I could look out the window on windy roads and never get sick, like a comfortable sleepy whirlwind of deep greens that made me love the feeling of living in the mountains. I loved where my grandparents lived. So much. And I loved breakfast, this would explain my enthusiasm with it to this day. My grandparents used to go out to breakfast every single morning. A deal my grandpa made with her when they were first married, "if you work in my office with me I'll take you out to breakfast every day for the rest of your life." I love when he tell that story. Their romance was goals. So classy and daring at the same time. They were adoring, light hearted and sarcastically sweet, with a priceless sense of humor.
The cars smelled like leather, the wholesome kind. There was an odd satisfaction to it, or maybe just a comfortable memory that was linked to circumstances. I can still smell it.
I would sit in the back and listen to the murr of noise filling the air, probably silently brainwashing me into a conservative, and think about if I would order the rough and ready or French toast. I swear this was the toughest decision in my life at the time. Nothing was too burdening back then. I wanted a combo of sweet and savory, because if I only had one I'd always want the other, it was the constant struggle.
I turned on the radio a few days ago and it was on an am talk show, and these memories came flooding over me. Sometimes they just hit you in the most overwhelming way. It was feelings of excitement and nostalgia, like seeing someone you've missed for the first time in years. An initial reaction. A natural reaction. And it was heart-wrenching. So many tears. Haven't cried like that in awhile. But it was the good ol' times. Before we all grew up, before the cancer, before any decision was more burdening than my breakfast order. The times I wish I could go back and appreciate more.
"I wish there was a way to know you were in the good ol' times before you left them" - Andy(the office)
My favorites memories are the ones that come from senses. Touch, taste, and smell. I still remember what it felt like to hug my grandma, or better known nana. The taste of French toast and coffee in the morning when I was 11. The smell of the sweet peas that grew on everything in my nana's garden. They smelled like her. It couldn't of been more perfect. She was the sweetest most genuine woman, in the most classy and old school type of way. Nothing like an older person, just a beautiful person.
These things make me wonder what memories she carried with her all through her life. The feelings that were deep. Meaningful. The things that would hit her out of nowhere. There is beauty is the caricature of what makes a person feel. The authenticity of it. the reflection if trueness to oneself. I wish I could've had more time to know her. To appreciate how her mind worked. To find her love in my own life . That is the only thing that I have not liked about being the youngest in my family, essentially, is that they all got so much more time with her than me.
But the fact that I was young and recognized the beauty in her, just proves how prevalent it really was.
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I remember when we were living in LA, it was the summer of my 7th grade. We were there for her treatments, our last season with her. I came back to the apartment with classic red thin vans that I had been wanting, the kind that looked like keds, she loved them so much. Got so excited when she saw them in my feet when I walked through the door. She said she had the exact same pair when she was younger, but they were actual keds of course. It made me love them even more. So much nostalgia is linked to red vans for me, I still have that pair. They're completely beat up and old, have holes in them, and I splattered them with paint in 8th grade because I thought I was really cool. Honestly I still I'll think it looks kinda cool. I wear them sometimes. They give me feels. Like I'm wearing my memories, the treasured kind, the worn kind, but no one notices but me.
Man I miss her.