inherited no. 8

in early october i made the trek down to alabama for a quick weekend. i'm not sure how many years had passed since i had stepped foot in anniston. i went mainly to see the m.d. and her own m.d., my grandma, who is 85 and the most humble person i've ever met, seriously. louise walker spent most of her childhood in a catholic orphanage in birmingham, and on june 20, 1947, when she was 22, she married my grandpa, leonard harkins. my grandpa was already sick with parkinson's when i was born, so i remember my grandma spending most of her time caring for him. she's been on her own for twenty years now and has been pretty independent until the last couple of years. now she lives with my aunt and uncle, and she spends her days praying, playing solitaire, doing puzzles, eating sweets, and napping. there is a photograph of my grandpa in his military uniform hanging in her room, and the first day i visited her on this trip she looked at the picture and said to my mother and me that he was a good man. such a simple statement, so true, but it was clear that what she was really saying was that she missed him. i can't imagine what it must be like to have lived twenty years without the person you loved most in all the world.

this is a rather roundabout way of getting to the inherited part of this post. as we sat in her room and my heart twisted in my chest at seeing her so different from when i'd last visited, she suddenly remembered that she wanted to give me something. (in all fairness, i had a hint this was coming.) she told me to go over to the statuette of the "blessed mother" on her dresser, and perched on top, like a halo, was her wedding ring.
i don't know why she chose me, it could be as simple as the fact that i'm the oldest unmarried grandaughter. (go me!) it's a simple ring in thin white gold, with almost sharp edges around the circumference. it's the sort of ring you wouldn't even notice, which is exactly how my grandma has lived her life, never trying to call attention to herself, but it now ranks among my most treasured possessions. too small for my own fingers, i strung it together with my mother's wedding ring. my mother's thick gold band hangs heavy next to the delicate, thin ring that bound my grandparents together for 43 years. wearing them together i constantly find my fingers twisting around them, trying to hold on to, to feel between my fingers, the love and hardship and commitment that kept them on my grandma and my mother's fingers for so many years. to have them, though, is bittersweet, because that i have them, that they aren't still on their original owners' fingers, is evidence of a loss beyond my comprehension.
that's the tricky thing about inheritances -- they almost always stand for someone's loss. thank you, grandma, for continuing to use a prayer book that's in pieces, for playing solitaire with cards whose edges are worn down in the center from years of shuffling, for reminding me of what matters.

inherited no. 7

a beatles themed birthday

(note amazing stenciled banner in background)

april is a rough month. i always find myself torn between being excited for spring and a little shaken up that another season is passing, already. april is also full of days that i rarely talk about anymore, at least not on the day itself, a month full of stewart births and deaths.

my grandaddy was born on april 16, 1916.

my father was born on april 12, 1946.

my father died on april 21, 1999.

this year april 21 passed, and on the day itself i didn't speak a word of it to anyone. i'm not very good at asking for what i need, especially when i don't even know what it is that i need.

this year my father would have been 64. i like to imagine his life before things went awry, before the little brother whose birthday he shared died and the world stopped, or at least that's how i imagine things. my father never uttered his brother's name to me, and it wasn't until he was gone that i could even begin to imagine what happened to the family living in the house at 931 montvue when keith stopped breathing, at three years old and having only ever learned to say my father's name. it breaks me to think of this family, my family. i like to imagine him like this, instead:


a chubby kid with a big smile, playing with trucks and trains and not yet marred by keith's death and his mother's alcoholism and vietnam's losses. this little tonka reminds me that, despite all this, he made me believe that his childhood was one adventure after another, whether it was treeing raccoons or boy scout camp or shooting cans at the farm.


still, i'd give anything in this world to be celebrating his birthday with him instead of with this tonka. i miss you.

inherited no. 7

i've been feeling really guilty about my lack of posting on this bloggie. i realize i only have approximately five readers, but i still wish i could maintain a more consistent schedule. i mean, there's only so many ridiculous photos of animals people want to see. today won't be much of a break in terms of the animals, except for that this one is possibly an imaginary animal. yes, i'm talking about you, nessie. here she is memorialized in egg press's 'you're unbelievable' card. do i own it? yes, yes, i do, and so should you.
the loch ness monster has long been a source of fascination to the easily captivated stewart family. my grandfather on the stewart side was an ardent genealogist and traveled extensively in scotland researching the family name and bringing back various kinds of memorabilia. among the more notable items was this ensemble that i once donned for halloween. please note the hat to head ratio and the pervasiveness of plaid in this photo.


but, beyond extremely scratchy wool blend kilts and scarves, he also brought back this super snazzy nessie necklace for my mom. at some point in recent years, i may have hijacked this necklace from my mother's jewelry collection. i don't feel too badly about it because i have seen m.d. wear a necklace maybe three times ever. no, i am not exaggerating.


isn't she so cute? i love that the metal is worn and smooth and dulled down. just look at her little nose! she makes me so happy.

inherited no. 6

i told myself i had to stay in tonight to work on my ghirlandaio chapter and/or preparation for my class that meets monday. but the thing is, uva just switched to this new student registration system that has things all sorts of wackadoodle, and right now it only looks like two people are enrolled in my class. maybe more people will show up monday, but if not, the class will be canceled, and that makes preparation seem extremely unappealing. so now blogging has become a form of procrastination. that and trawling the internets for new music. to ease the nagging guilt i thought i would at least post an inheritance that's marginally related to what i'm supposed to be doing. you remember muriel, right, she of the watch and pastels and sesame street chitchats?


in honor of the closing days of summer, here's a favorite snapshot of grandmother. muriel kept an entire album of photographs taken from behind, it was her favorite kind, so it seems fitting that among the masses of photos i've collected, there's this one of her.


this tiny book is what i want to show you, friends. its pages are cracked and yellowed and it smells like the inside of old wooden drawers. also, it originally cost 60 cents. can you say awesome? i was only subconciously aware of this book's existence until a few years ago when one of my professors was listing off a short bibliography of general books on drawing i might consult. this was before i had irrevocably signed my life away to the study of these fragile pieces of paper, but when he mentioned this little text, it suddenly came into focus in my mind. oh, yes, i thought, i know that one, my grandmother owned it. and then, when i opened it, and it fell immediately to the page pictured below, well, something clicked.


on the page opposite the opening lines of text was the drawing that had pushed me over the edge into a full-fledged and unabashed love of the drawing hand. this is the one that, more than once, has single-handedly caused salty drops of water to spill over onto my cheeks. and that's all fine and dandy, la ti da, but then, to think that my grandmother must have stared at the same drawing, to think that she knew a piece of me before i knew it myself, before it could be known at all, well, that's just sort of mindblowing for me.

inherited no. 5

it's that time of year that time itself seems to speed up. i have a feeling these last months of 2009 are going to pass me by quickly and all the sudden it will be 2010, which i hear we're supposed to call "twenty-ten." i've only just gotten used to prefacing years with "two thousand..."

having always been overly conscious of the passing of time, the way years keep flying by is somewhat disconcerting. (and yes, i know, it's only going to get worse.) i'm pretty sure i almost annoyed m.d. to death by making the following kind of statement A LOT: "this is the last monday i am going to brush my teeth at home before i go to camp for a month." or, much later, "this may be the last breath my father is ever going to take." it doesn't matter what it is, i have always been obsessed with being aware of time, of firsts and lasts, of where i am in it all. i want to feel it between my fingers, and i want to remember it all. luckily i have a few things that help me out with this.


this small clock is more substantial than it looks, cast entirely in metal and still ticking away, despite having been patented in 1894. originally my great-grandmother's, the paint has worn away in places and the color on the details has faded. it's just the way i like it.


i'm wearing this little watch as i type. it was my grandmother's, and i remember finding it many years after she died when my mom and i were going through a suitcase of things we had taken with us while cleaning out her house. it was mixed in with cufflinks and clip-on earrings and tie clips and costume jewelry. when i saw it i fell in love with how delicate it is, the tiny stones framing the watchface, the fact that it has to be wound everyday and never needs a battery. the crystal was all scratched up, so m.d. had it replaced for me, and it's been in my watch wardrobe ever since. i think of grandmother every time i look down, only to realize that too much time has passed.


the last of my inherited timepieces is the least functional of the three but perhaps the most beloved. my father never wore a watch, maybe because it would have made his work more dangerous (he'd already gotten his arm caught in a machine once). or maybe because pocket watches are exponentially cooler. and in case you haven't noticed, my father was, um, kind of really cool. so he always had his pocket watch, hanging heavy and worn in his jeans pocket. my mom gave me the last one he had not too long ago, and i had forgotten its weight, its smooth, cool metal casing. needless to say, i love this thing, but i REALLY cannot figure out what on earth is happening in the narrative on the front. the back is a swirly art nouveau floral pattern, but then, flip it over, and there is what appears to be a native american male, mounted on a horse, and next to him is a woman, also atop a horse, wearing a voluminous dress and sporting a headdress? a tiara? a veil? two dogs run in the foreground. so maybe it's a man and his bride, sort of new world business? clearly ethically questionable, yes. okay, but then why are there medieval looking castles in the background? i'm telling you, there are some serious anachronisms going on here. if you've got any ideas, please let me know.


i suppose if he were here, i would ask my dad what is going on with this watch. although, of course, if he were here, it would probably still be resting warmly and comfortably in the pocket of his jeans, and i wouldn't be holding on to time quite so tightly.

listening to: lightning dust. buy it. immediately.

inherited no. 4

here i am, back for more. tonight i'm thinking about an inheritance that arrived in my possession via my mom aka mommerdoodle, often referred to here in the shorthand as m.d. she's the mommer to the doodle. i'm really trying to keep "gifts" out of this inherited series, but when i received this norton electric company telephone, patented in 1923(ish), it felt more like an inheritance than a gift. i knew it was mine for safekeeping.


by the way, before we move on to the specifics of this acquisition, i should mention that this phone was made in canada. to be honest, i wasn't aware anything but lifesavers were made in canada. (and this knowledge i owe to m.d.) who knew?

moving on.

this phone passed into my hands because my mother TALKS TO EVERY SINGLE PERSON SHE ENCOUNTERS...EVER. i often berate her for this behavior, but in all actuality, i wouldn't have her any other way. and, you know, i wouldn't have this amazing phone. the phone started out in the hands of a mr. jefferson, proprietor of a fish market in fairhope, alabama. i don't recall the details of how m.d. came to know mr. jefferson, but i know that he endeared himself to her by feeding and befriending the local feral cats and regaling her with stories of gambling in mississippi. just so you know, mr. jefferson is old, as in, when i met him several years ago, he showed me that he was a card-carrying veteran of world war II. the man fought in the battle of the bulge, people, and i am not joking. mr. jefferson had used this phone at his fish market for god knows how many years, and on the first day i met him and despite offers from others to pay good money for this weathered rotary dial antiquity, he handed me this treasure. and i don't believe it's because i was exceedingly charming or particularly interesting; it was solely because i am my mother's daughter. it's an object, a thing, a material possession no one needs, but there was something so moving about this transfer of goods. i have it, here, with me, as a reminder of an unlikely friendship between a slightly ornery old man and my overly friendly mother. it's a reminder of the good they saw in each other, and the good that i see in them.

i only met mr. jefferson the once, but i think of him whenever i pick up the heavy receiver of his phone. (and in case you're wondering, it still works after being adapted with a modern cord. the only problem is it sounds like a fire alarm on acid and increases risk of heart attack.) more importantly, whenever i see the phone, i hope that one day, i will be more like m.d. and not be afraid to walk up to a stranger and say hello. thank you, m.d., for talking to EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU ENCOUNTER...EVER.

m.d. with a fish in her hand
bet you didn't think you'd see this on the internets, huh, m.d.?

inherited no. 3

grandmother, katherine, and me
(i'm the one wearing the sweatband, yes, i said sweatband.)

my grandmother was probably my first best friend. hers was the second phone number i learned, after my own, and i loved to call her and discuss the merits of sesame street. besides spoiling me completely rotten, what i remember most about my grandmother was long conversations about whatever suited our fancy. when i spent the night my grandaddy was relegated to the guest bedroom, and she and i would stay up late trading words in the dark, in the same house that my father had nearly burned down as a teenager. (he wasn't kidding about coming home shooting and yelling.) my grandmother died in 1994, when i was twelve, and the loss seems somehow magnified with each passing year. how i would love to dial 236-6182 and hear her voice on the other end! i want to have the luxury of knowing her as a person, not just as my grandmother. i have a few things that help me out in this department, and one of my favorites is this, her box of rembrandt pastels, which i never knew existed until after her death. (and i am thankful to m.d. for noticing them and bringing them home when we cleaned out her house.)


the box is wooden and stained and clearly BEAUTIFUL. there's even a little dutchman sitting in the corner holding a pastel the size of his body. why don't pastels come in such snazzy packaging these days? even more lovely than the outside, though, is the inside:


there are rows of dusty pastels, tattered wrappers and broken bits, well worn by time and use. when i was little i knew my grandmother liked to draw, but it wasn't until she was gone that i came to understand that it was more than just a hobby. she studied and read and practiced and filled notebooks with directives, and now that i'm older, now that i know how dear drawing is to my own heart, it is comforting to think that there is yet another thread of kinship stringing us together. she and i, you see, we would still be best friends. i leave you with my favorite photo of muriel, in happy days.

inherited no. 2

my father, wearing some really unfortunate pants

as i was considering what sorts of things i might include among this collection of inheritances, i realized the list was getting quite long (and grows still). which is a nice feeling, actually, to be surrounded by things that once belonged to people i love. i thought i might begin with a most meager of inheritances, a letter from my father to his parents, scrawled in little boy cursive handwriting on tissue thin tracing paper. i should also say that, somewhere along the line, i became the treasurer of all the family photos and documents. not because my mom didn't want them, but because i pretty much demanded control of any material goods that preserved our familial history. (and now they're all labeled and filed away in acid free envelopes with family trees hand drawn on the back. and no, i don't need therapy.) i can't imagine life without all of these smelly old papers and crinkled photographs. if i didn't have them, i wouldn't be able to post embarrassing photos of my father on the internets.


this letter from camp reads: "dear father and mother, i am enjoying my stay here. i bought myself [a] davy crockett t-shirt and two dragnet pistols. [ed. note: pistols?!?] monday i rode ponys [sic]. tuesday i rode [a] pony and went to a picnic. wensday [sic] i went to stone mountain and the zoo. i took pictures of stone mountain and the animals in the zoo. i am a member of the davy crockett club. because davy came to atlanta. i am also a member of the dragnet club. i will bring doug [ed. note: his older brother] something back if i can. your loving son, scott p.s. i'll be coming home shooting and yelling."

ah, just what every parent wants to hear. also please note the artfully drawn floral motif directly above this threatening postscript. i love this letter, of course in part because it's a window into my father's childhood, and who doesn't enjoy that? but it's also that my father's letters to me when i was a child are one of the few things i have left of him. i can confirm that his correspondence remained charming and spunky, even forty years after he penned this epistle to his parents.

and because it's awesome, here is my father mounting what appears to be a triceratops:

i am feeling a bit self-indulgent (i guess i should feel that way by virtue of having a blog), but feel free to rein me in if i get too indulgent. xoxo.