I was rail thin
with no boobs, Johnine Lynn Denny-Waller tells me, describing her
adolescent body type when she was growing up. She spoke hoarsely over the
phone, in a voice that only a grandmother would sound like after sixty two
years of using it. I could imagine her,
still rail thin with no boobs, in her little home that she shares with her
husband, my Papa, and her Yorkshire Terrier whom she has named Stuart. She
smells of patchouli; strongly so. She is sitting on her vintage 50’s sofa that
was her mother’s before her. It is the only thing normal in her living room.
The other things are Native America artifacts, and different sculptures of
turtles, her spirit animal. Neither of them is Native American, although they
wish they were, and follow the customs and traditions as if they were their
own. Her legs crossed, wearing ballerina slippers. I never asked her why she
wore them, never thought it was strange.
Just like I never
thought it was strange that she nicknamed me Pickle-Pumpkin when I was younger
and has called me it since. Just like how she used to take me to the back of a
pub in order to purchase live fish for me to swim with in her pool. You used
to marry them, she said fondly, most likely looking out her window to its
place of occurrence. Just like how she used to spread burnt sage ashes
throughout my room because it kept the demons away, in the attempt of
reducing my bad dreams. She slept in the nude, something my sister whispered to
me at the dinner table one time when we were visiting, making my eyes go wide
and my face blush. I didn’t ask her about that either. I’m not sure I want to
know whether or not it’s true. I thought that’s how all grandmas were, no
make-up, no bra, terrible cook. She was consistent in one thing; she always encouraged
me to follow my spirit and whatever happens, happens.
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