I miss this.
My grandmother called you "The Pansies". I giggled at the image of a man as a pansy, visualizing a head bobbing on a thin stem, surrounded by purple petals.
My giggles encouraged her to continue her act by flapping her wrists loosely in the air, making me laugh harder. I knew that my grandmother was being naughty, as she was given to being, when she wasn't drunk and mean. I was grateful to have the silly and conspiratorial grandmother right then.
I didn't know what a "pansy" was, other than a man who was girly. As a girl, i understood that being girly was something weak and foolish, something my grandmother was not.
She was most decidedly not girly, this woman who could shoot and hunt and drink and fight and cuss. In her presence, i shoved down the very little girly parts that were in me, knowing they were weak.
2 comments:
I miss this too!
I've read about, and talked to, people who've had such people in their formative years. I didn't, and occasionally wonder what I missed, or if I missed anything. No life lessons, not even a good story to tell.
There are so many people who have very firm opinions about how life should be lived, and if everyone would just listen then the world would be a better place.
I, on the other hand, celebrate the differences between people and enjoy how different lives are lived. It is the contradictions that make life interesting. (Which is one of the reasons I used to enjoy this so much.)
How boring it would be if we all thought the sam way.
I’ve missed you and our former community.
Time passes and everything has the potential to change. Things slowly slip away.
(jaded)
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