Funny the things you remember. I remember my grandmother Yepros walking about the house as if she had sight. I would often find her in the back room of our cellar, lit only by the dim light of the windows which opened onto the cellar holes, windows spattered with the soil that splashed up when the fig trees (which were planted in the cellar holes) were watered. The washtub was located in the back room, the room next to the large room that housed the pool table (more on that later). I remember watching Grandma taking the wet clothes, one by one, from the tub of the washing machine and feeding my father's shirts, or my socks, or my little brother's pajamas into the ringer of the new electric washing machine. How she did this without sight and without ever getting her fingers caught was incomprehensible to me and is incomprehensible to this day. I would watch her patiently put each piece of clothing through the ringer, toss the rung out wet shirt or nightgown into her big rattan basket, the one with a handle on each side, and when all the clothes had been put through the ringer, carry that now heavy rattan basket of clean, wet clothes up the wooden back stairs to the back door at the top of the cellar stairway. Holding the large basket under her left arm, she would open that back door which had a glass window in it through which everyone else could see the back yard and the clothesline, except she couldn't because she couldn't see. She would make her way to that clothesline slowly, hoping (I'm guessing) that we or the neighbor children would see her and run to her to guide her to that clothesline, which happened because, once she reached the clothesline and set down that heavy basket of wet clothes, she would put her damp hand into the pockets of her faded cotton apron, and give each child a piece of candy -- Joyce and Ronnie and Wessie especially who always saw her heading to the clothesline because their house was on the second floor of the brown shingled two-family house next door and they could see her whether they were inside or out.
I would stand in our backyard, a very little girl, watching my grandmother hang clothes and praying that Jesus would come soon so that my grandmother would be able to see again.
Here are the words of the chorus I sang as I watched Grandma, always in Armenian as my Uncle Vartan (Rev. Vartan Bilezikian) had taught me:
Aleluiah, Aleluiah, Hisous noren bidi ka, bidi ka,
Aleluiah, Aleluiah, Hisous noren bidi ka.
Halleluiah, Halleluia, Jesus is coming, is coming again.
Halleluiah, Halleluia, Jesus is coming again.
DEEP POCKETS (Part 1)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was six years old, I discovered how well the blind can see. The night sleep was my own blindness, and, every morning, I welcomed back my sight. When I awoke on this morning, the world was crowding in, as it often did, through my open window. The puff of dawn drew me to the window, and a breeze that reached back to early spring, bathed me in my first day of summer vacation.
My bedroom looked out upon the vegetable garden and orchard. The color of the morning, even through my screen mesh, stood me on my feet. I threw on my shorts and t-shirt, and ran for the door. I passed through a hall that connected the back door to the kitchen. In this brown light lay the first scent of the labor of the life of our orchard, where trays of honey comb harvested from the bee hives were stored, and where the scent of honey and comb mixed with the scent of wood. It was an introduction to the meadow of our backyard, the might of our bees, and the meeting place of sky and soil.
This was the first of long, early mornings, crafted by summer, to lift me from my slumber to inspect those trees whose branches would soon be bulging with fruit. I heard Dad say, one time, that the heavens poured down upon us sun and water, and from the soil, grew bodies with brown arms and green sleeves, bearing the weight of life. The bodies with brown arms and green sleeves were our trees.
From birds, the song of summer blew in the breeze, though the temperature of spring was in the air. That edge of season braced me as I entered the garden and orchard of our back yard. My eyes grew wide, and my mouth fell open. I was surrounded by the color of silver. It was the same color as grandmother’s hair. I raced back in, ran up the stairs connected to the third floor where grandma lived, and knocked on her door. She beckoned me in. Although she could not see, her presence, then her arms embraced me. I told her of the morning, and how the color of light hanging from the trees and grass was the same color as her hair. That picture made her want to come outside with me, to 'see' it all. I held her hand, as we walked down the stairs, together.
Once outside, she stood there, tightened her hold on my hand, than slipped off her shoes. The dew, nestled in the dawn, soaked her feet, and she breathed in the life of the trees, the grass, and the blossoms. She reached up and touched the bark and the branches. She squeezed my hand, released it, then, knelt down and searched the grass.
Deep Pockets (Part 2)
ReplyDeleteWhen she stood, she had a story for me. She said, there is violence when night yields to day. The violence is writ large in the sky, and the war between day and night is marked by the blood of battle. Whether it is the beginning of the day or its end, the sky is rife with the violence of its seizure. This morning, the night had fled before the rising sun, and left behind a silver robe. The dawn had rolled it up and laid it as a carpet, hidden away, in our garden and meadow. The silver lay on the dew, and the dew made the grass pregnant with light, and the dew hung from the leaves of the fruit trees. She said, "In a very short time the meadow and orchard will hide the dew and the silver from us, and it will be lost to the night, forever."
I asked her how she knew this. She said there were many stories she could see in her memory. I looked up at her and saw a woman whose eyes were open wide, head raised slightly toward the sky, with lips drawn into a line, turning upward at the corners. Her body was held by a force I could not see. Although the breeze was slight, she seemed to be leaning against a wind.
She was listening to a sound wafting through the grass. The sound was a zephyr plucking pianissimo that nibbled through the notes of the birds, a sound which materialized into bodies that were shadow tails of grey. Grandma’s hands went into the pockets of her dress, a dress long enough to touch the ground.
When she withdrew them from the caverns of her cotton, her hands were filled with peanuts. I had never seen her feed squirrels. They knew her, so it must have happened before. The only other time I saw her withdraw hands, clenched, from the pockets of her dress, was when they were filled with sweets, and she was hanging clothes outside to dry. Ronnie and Joyce, neighbors from next door, and a few years bigger than I, always were alert to her arrival in the backyard. They bounded over the stone wall, at the first sight of her. The first time I saw that happen, I was three years old. I thought it strange, then, until I realized their eagerness to help was tied to the apron string of reward that was drawn from those pockets.
That was the first time I felt badly for somebody. It struck me as hard that they would help a woman who was blind, only because of what was hidden in the darkness of her pockets, and what promised to become sugar in the light and grasp of their hands. Somehow, it seemed, there were things that should be done without the promise of anything in return.
She would smile when she retrieved those candies from her pockets and deposited them into the hands of Ronnie and Joyce. Grandma could not witness the dance of the sun on their blond hair and blue eyes, but I knew she could hear that dance in their voices and feel it in the touch of their hands.
Now, she was giving to the squirrels, and the squirrels gave to her the excitement of their presence, and a melody for the morning. I had heard it said that in some cultures, grandparents raised the children. Now, I understood why. Grandparents had deep pockets. They withdrew from those pockets, not just nuts and candy, but stories and time, and hand holding, and listening. In those pockets were stored an offering of every good thing to eat, for mind, and body, and soul.