Then And Now:Grandmother and Granddaughter

On February 16, 1910 my grandmother celebrated her 10^th birthday. In 2010 my granddaughter will celebrate her 5^th birthday. I am link between these two lives. I hope my granddaughter will read these entries and feel this connection. It may be the similarity of mundane gadgets like the bobby pin, popularized by the bobbed haircut in the 1920’s and the no slip barrette worn by today’s toddlers. Or the connection may be more profound as my granddaughter cracks the glass ceiling so impenetrable in 1920 that my grandmother chose to leave her operatic voice silently on the stage if she wished to marry.

The Journey

Thinking back today to those years so long ago, I am reminded of the simple joy of New Year's Eve as a child; and the how it shaped my life. It had three things: a soup bowl filled with an ice cream sunday, a magic black and white picture featuring a huge sparkling crystal slowing heading towards my future, and two people who watched with me. There was only one couch. My grandfather always sat on the floor. It never occurred to me that this was not his place of choice.

Earlier that day as the minutes inched towards the new year, my excitement about my overnight stay was almost too much to bear. As I think back now as Nana, I am ever grateful that my grandparents lived across the road and threw the meadow. It was a short trip that has lasted a life time.

As I reflect on this moment, Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas In Wales comes to mind.

Listen to Thomas, just for a moment."Every Christmas was so much like another in those days..." There was Mrs Prothero's house fire, the "useful" and the "useless" present the Uncles and the Aunts.

Something happened to me between 6 and sixty. I understand that the excitement of Christmas, the gifts, the treats, the unexpected moments like Mrs. Prothero's fire were very much like the ice cream sunday on New Year's Eve. Very much like Dylan's Christmas. The ordinary becomes the extraordinary. It is this holiday magic-be it New Years, Christmas, Hanukkah, Three Kings Day, or Kwanzaa or any special family tradition, no matter how mundane or meaningless to others, that binds and strengthens us as we journey from grandchild to grandmother.

Notes From Nana

Every day when I was six, then seven, all the way to 10, I made the short walk through the white mop head hydrangea bushes to my Nana's house. It was time to practice. Each day I played. My grandmother sat off to my right, listening, watching, correcting, and nodding. At the time, I did not know that she sang opera before marrying my grandfather, whom, sadly, I never met. All I knew was she was devoted to my music lesson. Half way through there was always a break for an orange. Then back to the scales. How fast her fingers moved. Sometimes I wonder if I made mistakes just to listen to her playing. Her talent and ease at the keyboard was a gift that I opened when I was young, but did not appreciate until today as I sit with my own granddaughter playing the same notes, with the same love, if not with the same talent.

Nana, Proust And Chocolate Milk

If you have read Swan's Way, Marcel Proust's 1913 volume one of Remembrance Of Things Past, you know as Jonah Leher suggests in his wonderful book, Proust Was A Neuroscientist,(Houghton Mifflin, 2007) that the French author's words; "And suddenly the memory revealed itself: The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane." offers us a unique, accurate and artistic insight into the mind's memory as precise and thoughtful as those found in the today's scientific community.
I was a college student when I first read Proust. I did not know much about neuroscience or Proust. But this line brought back a memory so vivid I see myself sitting in my grandmother's kitchen today as I write.
My uncle, who happens to be only five years older than me, and I enjoyed a sibling rivalry. As with most childhood pranks, it did not take much to vie for first place. In this case, it was a teaspoon of cocoa. If you remember Howdy Doody, you can recall the patient wait for the milk to warm, but not curdle. There was no chance for my grandmother to check out the giggling behind her back as my uncle a I used our magnetized tongues to eat the cocoa. Of course, the real surprise was a one-time event, but my Nana always played along as we repeated the game ad nausea throughout the years. Today, it takes less than a minute to microwave the water and mix a prepackaged cocoa anyway you choose; even the marshmallows come to life instantaneously. But I always travel back to that moment when the boiling water bubbles the sugar-free cocoa. The cocoa may be different and the milk is now water, but the memory still warms my soul like the milk and cocoa did so many years ago.

Remember when?????? How often have you said those words? What spark ignited this memory?

Why Nana?

I have been called a lot of different names in my 62 years. Some I earned, some came with the role. But when my granddaughter was born, I knew I would be Nana. How did I know? My English heritage was steeped with Nanny's. My father and his siblings always knew my great-grandmother whose cane walked the ceilings of my childhood home was good for a cookie. Cooka-Nana was her name. My paternal grandmother lived next door and my maternal grandmother lived across the road and through the meadow. My name for  both was  Nanny; somehow there was no confusion when "nanny" was mentioned. I think it was the unique role each played in my life that made this an easy distinction.  Later, of course, as a sophisticated teen I  switched to "Nan" for my maternal grandmother whose longevity enabled her  to watch my two sons reach age 10.
But it was not just the familiarity with the name. Each woman lives in my heart today, and often helps me look through the grandmother lens to understand life.