My great-grandma and my aunt…
My great-grandmother raised me when I was very young. My mom was a young mother who had dropped out of college and was recently divorced (Dallas, my biological father, was a drug addict and an alcoholic, but my mom tells me he was also a very good writer, hmmm). My mom left Dallas’ Harlem apartment and moved back into her grandmother’s basement.
It’s strange how the basements of our mother’s houses are strangely recuperative and good for helping us muster our focus for the future. While my mom got her shit together and returned to college her grandmother became my primary caregiver. I can remember her like it was yesterday that she spoke to me because in my mind it prA’li was.
I remember her food most of all. I still hold her scrambled eggs to the highest esteem. No one has since come close to her ability of softness without runniness. My great-grandma’s peanut butter sandwiches would be cut into four pieces so unbelievably symmetrical you would have to pull out a micrometer in order to detect a difference.
I don’t find any shame in returning to my mother’s basement because I know that it isn’t the proximity to the boilerroom that keeps me warm but the love that comes from being close to the old ladies.
