WyzWmn's World©

my family has been discussing
via email
about a painting
that held court
in my Grandmother’s dining room

there was
over many years
serious and heart felt treasties given
over the subject of the painting
and whether it was a sun rise
or
a sunset…
but either way
the shadows caused the snow by the river
in this painting
to look blue….

it brought this memory
of my father’s family

I seem to recollect it was John’s position that it was sunset…

In my mind’s eye I can clearly remember him sitting in the middle of the sofa in the living room
Leg crossed, foot wagging…drink in hand
(telling Digger and I that we lied to him when we said that quitting smoking would get easier)

Winnie to his left and Gloria I think to his right
Fire burning down
Grandma in the burgundy wing back chair in the corner
Cup n saucer in hand
Norma in the chair opposite her reading aloud from a word puzzle book

Mal at the piano
A large Christmas tree in the opposite corner

That was the first time I heard John call the lustre’s on the mantle “piss whislters”

There may have been some cocktails involved

Digger sitting on a chair in front of the fireplace…
wearing a blue cotton turtle neck and a beaded native talisman around his neck

There were several of us “kids” hauling dishes into the kitchen from the dining room to load the dishwasher.
Diane and Pat are getting coffee at the kitchen counter
Peach is putting food in the fridge and Tim is standing in the kitchen doorway
Charlie is in the den watching the news

If I close my eyes I can hear the clinking of ice cubes in crystal glasses
and the tinkle of silver as it hits the dishwasher
the sound of plates being stacked…cups and saucers readied
I can hear Mal tinkling the piano keys
I can hear the tv in the den
There is someone running up the front stairs
And the clock in the front hall is clicking….

the laughter

it’s the soundtrack of my youth
at 15 Lakeside Ave

when I close my eyes…it’s all still there.

The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real by Margery Williams

(my cousin Judy, who lives on that other coast of ours lost a friend this week and this is part of what she said at his “homily”)

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.