I Was Born a Rambling (wo)Man

The summer has finally reached us in Ontario…I mean, the rain hasn’t left, but the sun is also here. Glorious, glorious sun. Time to get some colour in my skin.

I keep getting these email forwards with random stories in them, the moral almost always being seize the day, take every opportunity, you only live once, if you love someone tell them, if you want to be with somebody, tell them, etc and so forth. It’s a good message, I suppose, but I find it is hard to put into practice. Say for example, I did want to be with somebody, but they didn’t want to be with me…I can’t decide what’s worse, the rejection or the 50/50 chance of it. Yeah, there is the chance that they would want to be with you too, and then you'll be glad you did seize the day,but it could be disastrous. Or painful. The email forwards never take into account the, “but what if” factor. Yeah sure, I would love to just drop everything and travel around the world, but what if I run out of money and end up becoming a bum in some random European city? Yes, I would love to live in England and perhaps over time acquire an accent, but what if I umm, run out of money and end up sleeping on a park bench somewhere? Yes, I would love to tell so and so that I want to be with him, but what if he’s all like, ummmm clearly you are delusional. I would love to shave my hair off so I would never have to deal with it again, but what if I did not look as cool as Sinead O’Connor? Anyhoo, all I’m saying is, email forwards fail to take some things into account. It’s easy to say Carpe Diem when you are writing some sappy email with pictures of lavender fields or something equally as compelling, but how many people actually really do seize the day?

Where I am going with this? Clearly this is a rambly day. The sun came out and I got all dreamy headed.

I’ve been having this issue lately where the most random songs pop into my head at the most random times. I’m talking really random, like old church songs from when I used to get dragged to Sunday mass, or old baseball cheers. I’ll be walking along, looking at graffiti or something and all of a sudden, a voice in my head is singing, “Our team is what? RED HOT! Our team is what? RED HOT? Our team is r.e.d.h.o.t that’s the way we wanna be, uh huh. Oh Oh,uh huh, 2, 3, 4, if you think you’re gonna win, then you’d better think again, uh huh…” Or one time, it was The Song That Never Ends. That was extremely annoying. It’s like I have internal musical tourettes or something.

Maybe it’s hereditary. I mean, my family sings about everything. Sometimes it’s like living in a musical. We will make up songs to anything and everything, and oftentimes I sing my sentences. I don’t know if that’s annoying or endearing, but I do know that I can’t help it.

Sometimes my whole family will be sitting together, when all of a sudden someone says a trigger word, let’s say for example it”s “Virginia”, as in, “Oh hey, I was talking to my friend Virginia the other day”. Suddenly, from all corners of the room, you will hear several female voices start singing simultaneously, “come out Virginia, don’t let me wait, you Catholic girls start much too late, aw, but sooner or later it comes down to fate, I might as well be the one…” The male members of my family usually just shake their heads at this point, because who are these crazy people? It started with my grandmother and her legendary song sheets, and has been passed down generation to generation. Why we never started a musical group, I’ll never know, because that would have been pretty damn amazing I gotta say.

Happy Wednesday!

Let Me Count the Ways...

So, I'm sitting here in my spot downtown. I've realized today that it is not only my spot, there are regulars that come here. I am starting to recognize the faces by the fountains.

Two of these regulars are an elderly woman and a young girl. I like to assume they are grandmother and grandchild.

I have to say, every time I look at them, my heart kind of cracks, with a sense of oh my god, how do I still miss her so much, even after this much time has past?

Every time something good happens to me, I miss her, because I want to share it with her. Every time something bad happens, I want her to be there to say, "it's okay" and then braid my hair.

Her, my grandmother. The lady I will never until my dying day stop missing and admiring.

I guess that is a testament to what kind of lady she was. Beautiful, sassy, intelligent, tough, independent, patient, impatient, funny, loving, giving, classy..I could go on and on. I loved (love) her for being all those things. I miss her for the same reason.

I know, I know, that not everybody gets a grandma like I had. I was oh so lucky. If I turn into half the woman she was, I'll consider myself pretty blessed.

I really wish she knew me now. I really, really do. I wish she could have met the newest members of our family. She would have been so joyful about the whole thing.

Other family members have died, but none have left the ever present (at least somewhere in the back of my mind), gut wrenching, my heart hurts, kind of miss I still feel when I think about her.

It's a testament, I know it's a testament.

God, what a lady she was. My grandma.

But when I see other granddaughters and grandmothers, the ones I know are friends and have that special kind of relationship, I can't help but wallow, just a little bit.

I miss her, I miss her, oh my god, I miss her.