safe home, Sonny

The world is melancholia for me this week and I cannot escape my mother.  With the world blossoming and greening by the hour it is drawing me back to that last time, her time. I slept on the couch a few nights ago, you remember my story about the disheveled bed and the crazy soldier, and I needed something light for a cover, this weather too early warm at 87 degrees.  I didn't want to wake Dave as I rummaged  in the linen closet in the dark and I grabbed a tablecloth, her tablecloth, and it smelled like her. Red and white checkered, a combination of sweet linen and strong soap, a remembrance of many picnics, she was with me all night. It was comforting and sad all at once and I needed it to go on and on but of course, it didn't.

I needed some levity, some diversion, I needed a grandson.  Adam is interviewing his three -year-old sister.  She is infatuated with Dora, a television cartoon that has won multiple awards from distinguished children's agencies but she has a voice like a scratched chalk board  crossed with a wounded donkey.  Dora has a friend, Diego, an uninteresting boy who is able to keep up with her manic energy and non-stop chatter. Adam asks Cameron, what is Diego's favorite food?  What is Diego's favorite toy, favorite game, favorite TV show?   And lastly, what is Diego's favorite weapon? Thus speaks the testosterone-embedded child. 

Familiar scenario: a pile of building blocks.  The little girls build a tall house and insert little dolls as its cozy inhabitants.  Same pile of blocks.  The little boys build a tall house and then blow it up.  Oh, and to that last question, Cameron answered, blue.

My father is gone this week and perhaps this is the reason for my restlessness.  I have bought him a hanging red geranium for his front wall and sturdy pink begonias for his vase on the patio.  He plans to put impatiens in the flower boxes, always Marie's choice, and I am hoping he will find some satisfaction in the simple act of digging in the dirt, a secret kept from him all these years.