Sometimes,
simplicity is elusive. It inadvertently cloaks itself like the
sunshine which glimmers amongst the leafs while hiking an arboretic
path. Other times, simplicity is simple. It beams so bright that you
wonder how you could ever let yourself forget it's there. We all know
we need to simplify, yet we continue to construct labyrinths. Why
live in a little trailer when we could have a mansion? We're all
battling the ever cumbersome inclination to complicate.
I
do it too, worry too much, over complicate everything. I also tend to
write it off, leave it at saying But
Don't
we all?
However there are a certain few amongst us who do not. In my life, my
granny and poppa are some of these treasures. They, without trying,
on a daily basis light my way, their lives becoming my instruments of
hope – complimentary knowledge that I too, can discover, delight in
this alternate path.
It
is hard for me to imagine that they didn't always live in that single
wide trailer which has been my first stop all my life - home from
school, home from college, the first place I start my day after I
wake up late on a summer day. In fact, my Poppa and Granny had worked
at a sewing plant nearby all their life and finally made enough money
to build their dream home when not even a month after they had moved
in it had went up in flames. Today, I see their flamed filled eyes,
my poppa who was born with the temperament of a skittish dog, and my
granny keeping composure only for the sake of him and her youngest
daughter, my aunt, a young girl at the age of seven at the time. How
did they tell themselves in that moment everything was going to be
okay?
My
mind recalls a
church
sign which I have passed countless times, like a scrolling marquee
permanently engraved in my brain: Where
there is love there is life. How
every time I would think of my granny and poppas, as well as my first
love. The two are somehow connected.
On
a life map, the hiccup of your first love is much like the sight of a
haphazard tree in the middle of an open field, unforgettable, a
milestone. With the start of sophomore year, I was patiently waiting
for the first sign of a spark. Shortly, I learned that first loves
are not sparks, they are fireworks, grand explosions that make you
feel like you have never been more alive. All of the knowledge you
gain, the perpetual lists of firsts together. Yet, fireworks are
ethereal, they come and go, as do most first loves. We are reminded
how animated our heart can be, only in retrospect to realize how
nearly impossible it would be for amplified excitement like that to
last forever. Still though, the love was not lost, buried in some
special part of your soul, like first steps, or first brushstrokes on
a a new brillo pad, uneraseable.
I
know now that when I am in love, I am the little curly haired girl
running across the tennis court length cow pasture which connected my
childhood home to my granny and poppas house. Running Bare-foot.
Unafraid.
Comfortable.
The
little house doesn't match the houses from better homes and garden
which speckles my grandmother's nightstand inside; this small fact
only makes me love it more – with it's threadbare beauty,
simplicity and imperfections made majestic. Pay close attention and
the crooked homemade mailbox before you arrive tells all. Drive up
the rutted out, once upon a time gravel drive way that follows the
highly rusted fence that sprawls around the entire house and property
in its haphazard way. Nowadays, the house is a light green with dark
green shutters, which was either an act of entertainment or to
transform the typical white of a trailer into something a little more
homely, or both. From afar the paint job looks professional, up close
you notice it was done by shaky hands and inappropriate paint brushes
with which they could only try their best to paint all the tight
corners. Still, even when I know that to passerby and new guests it's
probably best described as ruins, my heart tells my mind it is a
small castle, refuge, fortress.
The
inside of the house has much the same effect. The back door, which is
the door of choice, pushes you immediately into the heart of the
house, a small yellow kitchen where my grandmother is queen and she
ordains love daily, by the biscuit and glass of sweet tea. The
extent of her decorating the kitchen consists of every so often
splurging on a new decorative plastic table cloth. A relatively empty
school calender, marked only with birthdays and doctors appointments,
always hangs on the faux wood paneling. The emptiness reminds me of
two things. First, that ever since they were both laid off, their
retirement has been comprised of days which are mostly the same. My
immediate discernment is boredom, then I sit down and eat supper with
them and realize that is far from what it is. Like the chicken stew
hot from the oven, there is warmth at that table, radiating inner
peace, revealing the simple joys of routine.
The
second is that my life is far removed from these simple pleasures. My
calender is completely booked, blank days like rare animals almost
extinct. Reminders that I am not that little carefree girl anymore.
The one that made rock museums in the hedges in the front yard. Or
the one who got pushed to new heights in the tire swing by her father
on the huge tree out front. Even the tree is no longer there, only a
hidden stump remains. I have duties. My granny and poppas lives seem
light years removed from my own.
This
year I missed Easter sunday at my Granny and Poppas for the first
time ever. I didn't get to savor the giblet gravy and dressing, watch
my little cousins hunt easter eggs, share the laughs about how my
Poppa's method of hiding eggs is not hiding them at all. I was
working, of course, left only to create imagined memories.
Waitressing tables so that other people could enjoy their easter with
their friends and family. But what I learned that day is something
I've known all along, my granny and poppa, my family, that little
girl, that place are all things which keep me going.
The
day after Easter I jumped in my car in the morning intending to only
go grab some breakfast, but the only thing I was hungry for was some
of my Granny's Easter left overs. Before I knew it, I was pulling up
their drive way. I was home. My little cousins were there too, on
account of it was their spring break. Together we hid eggs and
pretended like it was easter. In the front yard, we did hand stands
and cartwheels. While playing with them, tears fell gently down my
face as I discovered that it isn't as hard to simplify as I let
myself believe. And as for being that girl again, she is still alive
and well inside of me, she always will be because where
there is love there is life.
Lucky for all of us, sometimes love is simple. I love my granny and
poppa, that place, myself because sometimes I love because I know no other way.
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