Hello Family and Friends,
“I just have this unyielding belief that the universe will return everything back to you.”
~Brianna S. from Reclaiming One Sock and a Hoop Earring
This letter, Reclaiming Lemons and Lavender, started about 6 months ago when I was traveling in Brazil. It felt too soon and too undone, so I let it sit for a bit to figure out where I was trying to go with this. Lots of erasing. Lots of reconfiguring in search of the perfect eulogy.
My nana – my father’s mother – passed away in her sleep about six years ago. I don’t know if you read my last letter, but her death was the prompt that compelled me to go to Toledo and visit her sister and brother-in-law, my great aunt and uncle, Joan and Jerry. Joan and Jerry exalt her to sainthood. And it may be true because everyone who knew her well remembers her in that light.
I remember her most in her home, specifically in her bed. We would just lay in bed eating Mentos and cough drops watching Perry Mason, Columbo, American Gladiator and soap operas. My nana used to have a lemon tree; I think that was when and where I acquired the preference of sour lemons and sugar.
While I have a million wonderful memories of her, I can’t say that I think about her every day. However, when I went to Brazil with my friend, Tyler, a few months ago I could feel her presence everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. In the AirBnB, during bus rides, and sitting on the beach. I was hyper-aware of her presence and the soulful appreciation that she would have savored the moment had she been alive to experience it. I’ve always had very vivid dreams, but never of her, so I was surprised (but not really) that she materialized in my deep rest. It was only when I was clearly awake, in a country that I don’t know if she has ever step foot on, that I felt her presence the most since the dementia and frequent hospital visits.
It was as if for a couple of weeks she had returned to me. Not as I remembered her, but as who she would have been/ could have been/ or was from a adult point of view.
In Search of Lost Time. Remembrance of Things Past. Swann’s Way. Different titles of the same 7 volume book by Marcel Proust. I love the titles, but I couldn’t get past the first chapter. Anyways, the narrator bites into the famous madeleine dessert cake dipped in tea and suddenly remembers many forgotten memories of his past.
The thing about sensory induced memories is that they can hit you when you least expect it.
Recently, my friends, Jelicia and Angelica, and I went to Seattle just because. Angelica and I just also happened to turn 30 right before, so I guess that’s what I did for my birthday. Besides my friend Yordanos living in Seattle, I didn’t really have any real reason to want to go to Seattle. I was just going just to go. Then- just like when that protagonist bit into the madeleine and all of his memories came rushing back- I got a whiff of lavender and remembered something that I almost forgot.
My grandma and I went on a trip to Seattle to visit her friend who was battling cervical cancer. It was just the two of us. It was such a peaceful trip. She didn’t call a single person an ‘ol’ fool’. There was no rush. No agenda. Just moving along at an easy, senior citizen pace.
That was the start of so many of my favorite things. They were really her favorite things that I enjoyed doing with her and now enjoy in memory of her. We went to the Butchart Gardens in Canada where I took about 11,000 pictures of random flowers (thanks to the invention and mass production of affordable digital cameras; however, I no longer have those pictures because they were on a flash drive that died) and I met my neighbor from down the street when she saw my California ID. Years after this girls trip, we would just go to the Huntington Garden or enjoy the flowers at her favorite place- Caltech. While we were in Seattle/ Canada, we visited this expansive lavender farm. What an experience! I had never wanted to randomly frolic in nature until that moment. I hate the Sound of Music (because I hate most musicals), but I can appreciate the feeling of wanting to randomly twirl in lavender.
It was when I was standing at a booth at Pike Place Market this past September- the 1st year I did not receive a card in the mail- deciding on which lavender products I was going to buy that I knew how the letter that started in Brazil would finally end. And for a moment my Grandma had returned to me.
I still stand by what I said: I just have this unyielding belief that the universe will return everything back to you.
Of course, I will never get back either of my grandmothers in their earthly form, but I will get them back every time I smell lavender and taste lemons.
Sometimes I think I write so much and take so many pictures because I have the worst long term memory. Maybe I’m just afraid of forgetting. Maybe I’m afraid of getting dementia like my nana. Maybe I write these letters so I capture the fleeting memories. Just like Tootle- who was so distraught when he lost his marbles which contained his happy thoughts– I, too, try to keep all of my happy thoughts in pictures, in voicemails, in 3 page monthly letters, and recordings.
To end this letter, and this year, I would like to share with you this quote from William Faulkner:
“I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire…I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.”
So, in my 12 month, 13 letter series of all the things that I’ve reclaimed, I’m reminded to not let any of those things that I hold so near and dear to my heart overshadow the moment. Everything will return to you- in due season. I can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store.
Happy New Year,
Brianna
Fear Was Last Season 