Jun 2015
My sister is a fantastic writer.
She started writing as a way to cope.
She misses our grandmother's house,
for quite some time that was all she could write about.
She wrote about the looming, gentle, green pines that swayed over the small pond and the way you could gaze at the water and see not only the pines but also sky, just as blue and white and occasionally yellow and orange and you could could see it just as clearly whether you looked down or up.
Now, she writes about God,
or god, (although I don't think she believes in a 'the God')
she writes about the cold mist from the bay that warms up by midday but there are no pine trees.
My grandma became sick.
She became very sick of mind,
although her heart has never failed,
her memory failed her and anxiety overcame her.
She couldn't live out on the ridge anymore.
She couldn't take care of those twelve acres and the horse and the donkey and the dogs and the very small cat named Po that only came down from the attic very rarely and only to eat. She couldn't take care of these things and herself and my mother and she couldn't have laid a bigger hand into molding my sister and me. Through many an ear yank and many a promise of the wooden spatula (a never kept) she forced and graced upon us respect; for the land and living beings like, love, for the land and living beings alike, and a humbleness before the beauty of the land and living things alike.
My grandmother now lives in a gated community. Her condition has stabilized through trial and error using psychoactive drugs. Her understanding is lower and her anxiety is much higher than when she lived on the ridge but the doctors don't want to make things worse with experimentation and my grandmother doesn't want to either.
My sister's words always bleed of the page and I can see the pond and the trees and our tan bodies and the dry red dirt, and I'm thankful she has this affinity. I'm glad she can play scenes from our childhood out as if from a movie.
She started writing as a way to cope.
She misses our grandmother's house,
for quite some time that was all she could write about.
She wrote about the looming, gentle, green pines that swayed over the small pond and the way you could gaze at the water and see not only the pines but also sky, just as blue and white and occasionally yellow and orange and you could could see it just as clearly whether you looked down or up.
Now, she writes about God,
or god, (although I don't think she believes in a 'the God')
she writes about the cold mist from the bay that warms up by midday but there are no pine trees.
My grandma became sick.
She became very sick of mind,
although her heart has never failed,
her memory failed her and anxiety overcame her.
She couldn't live out on the ridge anymore.
She couldn't take care of those twelve acres and the horse and the donkey and the dogs and the very small cat named Po that only came down from the attic very rarely and only to eat. She couldn't take care of these things and herself and my mother and she couldn't have laid a bigger hand into molding my sister and me. Through many an ear yank and many a promise of the wooden spatula (a never kept) she forced and graced upon us respect; for the land and living beings like, love, for the land and living beings alike, and a humbleness before the beauty of the land and living things alike.
My grandmother now lives in a gated community. Her condition has stabilized through trial and error using psychoactive drugs. Her understanding is lower and her anxiety is much higher than when she lived on the ridge but the doctors don't want to make things worse with experimentation and my grandmother doesn't want to either.
My sister's words always bleed of the page and I can see the pond and the trees and our tan bodies and the dry red dirt, and I'm thankful she has this affinity. I'm glad she can play scenes from our childhood out as if from a movie.
