As she gets older its because she can't see past her windshield... but she has always been a bad driver. It's a running joke in my family that she has a magic force field around her car. I think its because she has always driven a lexus. No one wants to hit a Lexus.
But she's always been a bad driver. And as much as it scares me I love her for it, because my Grammy is most herself when she's cruising.
It's hard to imagine. But driving is one of the only times I think she feels a real independence. She becomes full of purpose, destination, activity. She offers me candy, water, new books, a challah. She caters to your every need. All the while singing along to am radio.
And when I am not clutching the dash or wincing at the sight of crossing pedestrians, I sing with her.
My favourite distraction is when she talks about the neighbourhood she grew up in - My great-grandfather bought a little house on Rusholme. She was born there, raised there. She got dressed in her wedding dress in that house. Its such a part of her. I live on the third floor of a house up the street from it. Its so pretty. With these tall bushes out in front.
There is this one great photo I've seen, of my Grammy standing outside that house, with her sister Toby.
But even more than that picture I feel like I know it because of the way she talks about it. And sometimes when I walk down the street to the streetcar I think about how its so much the same as it must have been then. The houses are all old. The trees are so old they must have been tall even in the 40s.
Its so great to hear about the Boyd gang who stuck up the bank that is now the Starbucks at the corner of dovercourt and college with bandanas tied over there faces. It really happened, although probably not in the black an white silent film way it does when I picture it.
I hear a lot of little tidbits that from Grammy.
Like here's a great one. Right next to where the Royal Theatre on college, where the OMNI radio office is. That used to be a chicken yard. Where burds would run around. And you would point to the one you wanted. And they would kill it for you. I have always wondered whether it cost extra to have it plucked.
I wish I could see it. Sometimes I try to imagine it. Its a good way to calm oneself when hurtling through a red light.
I can't see it though. Her world. Not really. Because the trees are older. 50 years older. And there's a starbucks and a multicultural radio station. And the internet and feminism, and facebook and Arab Spring and pop psychology. And I just have all that in my development. It must be so strange to see something over the course of 80 years. What is everything to me is just such a small part of her experience. she sees things as what they were, they way they aren't anymore, but were, to her.
She comes from a world where what was right was to come second, to put my needs behind others. To see it as a badge of honour, a matter of pride, to make sure I could put myself second and never let anyone want for anything, or underappreciate what I had.
I do love her for it. I continue have to shake of the feeling its my duty to "free" her from it. Show her what its like to indulge your indulgences, fill your cravings and say exactly what the fuck you are feeling whenever the fuck you are feeling it. Its really not - my job - that is.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I have a little to learn in the self-restraint department. I don't disagree with them.
I just wish we could meet in the middle somewhere's. There is something to be said for modesty, but sometimes you can't beat following your gut, and just givin'er. But I guess she does have her moments of that to. Like I said.... she's never more free than when she is in the car. So I guess I will just shut up and ride. Even if I have to bite my tongue.
I will shut my eyes, hope that she gets a conservative tester at the DMV next time, let ol Blue eyes soothe me and try to imagine how much you would have to pay me to pluck chickens as an after school job.
