tinhuvielartanis | Entries tagged with granny

We would go up to Craggy Dome at least once year to pay our respects to Granny.

The last two times I visited, it was to add Aunt Tudi's ashes to Grannys. I went back up a couple of weeks later, broke my camera, got lost, and finally got back to Janice and Uncle Michael's.

I want to go again. One more time. I need it. The only other place I could imagine being happy to die there is Craggy Gardens in Asheville, NC, and magick that is Avesbury.

Visiting the area from which we scattered Granny's ashes in 1993 seemed to bring a kind of peace to Aunt Tudi. She might have started the journey a little down in the mouth, but crazy music and dangerous coffee took care of all that. And it allowed us to have the fun, I'd like to think Granny would have wanted us to have. The one solemn moment was when Aunt Tudi would retouch the black cross on the stone from which we launched Granny. I could always tell when she needed some alone time. I never thought I'd be making that drive by myself, intent on tracing a Pentagram beside the cross. Aunt Tudi was not a Wiccan or a Pagan, but she grokked it in a way a lot of self-proclaimed Witches are at loss to understand.

I want that sensation of flight and try to spin onto my back like a bag in the wind, so I can face Nature's painting masterpiece and maybe even glimpse the spirits of Aunt Tudi and Granny, as they stand to welcome me after gravity has had its dark way.
I need to go home.

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: Not on the Blue Ridge Parkway
Current Music: city noises

English is the only language I can fluently speak, and even that is debateable. I know bits and bobs of other languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, German, Yiddish, Russian, Polish, and Xhosa. But there is this one language whose intricacies I began learning at a very early age. That would be Sarcasm. When it comes to Sarcasm, it really doesn’t matter what your native tongue is; rather, it’s more to do with body posture, inflection of the words, even the tone of voice that makes for a successfully delivered dollop of linguistic malice.

I began learning Sarcasm at the tender age of nine. It had been going on three years since my parental units’ divorce and, even though I was well taken care of and had no doubt that I was loved by Granny and Aunt Tudi, I still missed that connection kids apparently enjoy, regardless of culture or location. I would write them letters, and be thrilled when they wrote me back.

If they wrote me back.

One day, Aunt Tudi and Granny took me to Woolworth’s so I could spend some of my allowance money. Instead of getting a little toy, or candy, or whatever a kid with a couple of bucks could buy back in 1976, I bought two identical greeting cards. After not hearing from either Unit for quite some time when I saw these cards, it was my first crash course in the wonderful world of Snark.

Even though I was hellbent on mailing them to the Mother and Father Units, Aunt Tudi convinced me not to do it. I kept the cards, though, up until I finally disposed of them in the late 90s, because they were yellow and tattered with age. The message was ingenious, though, and I kind of wish I’d held on to them, just for shits and giggles. I’ve recreated the card here, for the enjoyment of any and all.

Very simple, to the point, and unmerciful – like all good sarcasm should be.

Current Mood: surly
Current Location: the house
Current Music: Scott & Brendo - Synthia

Fifteen years ago today, Granny, the grandmother who raised me with Aunt Tudi, died from complications of congestive heart failure and diabetes. Almost from the moment I was brought home from the hospital, Granny took care of me. She and Aunt Tudi were always there for me. When the Mother Unit and Father Unit broke up in 1974, it was Granny who stepped up and looked after my best interests above those of her son, my father. He didn't deal with the break-up very well and he did some things that haunt me to this day during the short period of time I was in his custody. If it hadn't been for Granny and Aunt Tudi, my psychological issues would be a lot worse than they are. Not to diss on the Father Unit. He was having an extremely rough time of it and wasn't able to function as he needed to. The last thing he needed or should have had was custody of a six-year-old. I don't blame him or the Mother Unit for anything that went on during that period of time. It just needed saying that Granny was the one who, along with Aunt Tudi, championed my cause above everything and everyone else.

She had her faults. She was biased against blacks and gays, and she was a staunch Protestant Christian, being raised a Southern Baptist. She was born in 1925 in Union, South Carolina, and was truly a product of her time and environment. But in many ways she grew beyond that and became open to certain possibilities. Even though she had her issues with non-whites, she taught her children to not be bigots. And even though she knew that my best friend was gay, she loved and accepted him as though he were her very own grandson. Theirs was a "don't ask, don't tell' policy, but I'd like to believe that, if that policy had ever been broken, she would have still loved him no matter what. From early childhood, Granny taught me that I could sit under a tree and be closer to god than I ever could in a church. That simple lesson was what eventually led me to Witchcraft. And, even though she disapproved of my spiritual choices, Granny never once stood in my way or tried to preach the Gospel to me.

She was a wise woman who lived a very hard life, having to raise three children alone after her husband abandoned her when she refused to dump those children in an orphanage to run off with him to live a life of international intrigue. He outlived her by 13 years, I think, and he was older than she. I can't help but think he enjoyed a life extension off the backs of his abandoned wife and children, my father being his youngest child, who died a year before his own father. She loved unconditionally, taught gently, and sang beautifully.

One of my earliest memories is of being rocked in Granny's arms while she sang "Sleep Kentucky Babe." My last memory of Granny is of her spirit dashing through me as I watched her body die in the sterile hospital room in which she spent her last days. I know she was entering into a realm of joy, even though I didn't want her to go. I try not to be selfish in wishing she were still here but, some days, I'd give anything to go back to being tiny enough to fit in Granny's arms and know nothing more than the simple contentment of listening to her song and feeling her warmth envelope me.

EDIT: An example of how Granny would have done anything for me: when we moved from SC back to NC back in the 70s, Granny held my Russian Blue cat Esmerelda on her lap all the way from Duncan to Black Mountain. This may not sound like much of a thing, but Granny couldn't bear the feeling of fur. Fur on her skin made her pretty much freak out. So her two-hour journey was spent enduring my fur-baby's presence on her lap, while she fought fainting and enjoyed a cold sweat the entire time. She loved me that much. And I loved her. And I miss her. Still.

Current Mood: sad
Current Location: home
Current Music: Barry Andrews - Queens Beast

Most every time I'd bellyache about my life, Granny would pipe up with this dollop of wisdom: I cried because I had no shoes until I met the man who had no feet. That is to say, "there's always someone worse off than you, so shut your pie-hole." Even though this pissed me off, it often made me a bit more grateful for what I did have, and it always shut me up. Until....

Until I grew older, more cynical, a tad jaded, and a whole hell of a lot snarkier. I took Granny's dollop of wisdom and updated it. Since I have no children onto whom to pass this, I'm sharing it here, so that your children's children might take solace in the words.

I cried because I had no shoes until I met the man who had no feet. So I took his shoes, as he obviously wouldn't be needing them.

::tosses crap glittery fairy dust for to cut your eyeballs with::

Current Mood: mischievous
Current Location: home
Current Music: Dave Matthews Band - Satellite

Uncle Michael was just too much for Janice to handle by herself, so she called us around 3 AM, asking Aunt Tudi if she'd come down to the hospital to help. Like Willie Nelson, we were on the road again, and now I'm home alone. If I had some after shave, I'd apply it to my face and then run screaming through the house.

Anyway, by the time we got to the hospital and acquired the necessary pass to get into the heart center, it was after 4 and Janice had had to request sedation for Uncle Michael. He was looped out when we made it to his room. Who knew that a sodium deficiency could flip someone out so badly? I told Janice she needed to buy the man a salt lick.

What's so weird is that he's in the same hospital room Granny was in when she had her last heart attack and was then moved to CCU where she passed away. Granny was between worlds about 36 hours before she died and, during that time, she called Aunt Tudi "Stella." We don't know why. We knew no Stellas and none are in the family, so it was totally off the wall. On the dry marker board where the nurses write their names for the patients' convenience, it was written clear as day: "Your nurse is Stella." So Uncle Michael is in Granny's pre-death room and his nurse's name is the name Granny called Aunt Tudi hours before she died.

I'm fairly freaked out by all of this and just can't sleep. By the time I get to the doctor for my physical, I'm going to look like an extra from Dawn of the Dead. Hopefully that will work in my favour and the doc will believe me when I tell her that my left side is truly falling off and I'm sick of being in pain.

Current Mood: exhausted, yet weirded out
Current Music: Jumpin' Jack Flash

I've written about 500 words today, but I finally got down the tale of Thanatos and Virginia Dare. When I was a kid, Aunt Tudi and Granny ordered me a book from Readers Digest entitled American Folklore and Legend. Even as a wee tot, I had little regard for American anything except for the short period of time in 1979 when I became a flag-waving idiotic Reagan supporter. It was the Iran hostage crisis and I was young and dumb, so don't hold it against me. Anyway, I just wasn't into my country's history, folklore, or Yankee Doodle tall tales. But one story always held me enthralled and that was the story of Virginia Dare and the Roanoke Colony. So, when I first started making notes on what would eventually become The Chalice, I decided to intertwine her story with that of Thanatos'. Up until today, Virginia was Thanatos' vampire lover. I've changed that now. Now, Virginia was raised by Thanatos, who was witness to what happened to the Roanoke settlers and had to see the same thing happen to his beloved adopted daughter. I never mention exactly what happened to the colony, just that a great darkness was visited upon them. It could mean disease, a curse, mass murder, whatever. All that I say is that Virginia, being connected to the colonists, is affected physically by the same darkness when she turned 20, forcing Thanatos to transform her into a vampire. But the transformation is only a delay for her imminent demise. So yeah.

Tonight we're supposed to enjoy temperatures in the mid-30s. Last night our low was 62. That's almost a 30 degree difference. We're all going to die.

I was thinking about Granny earlier. She used to make humourous grocery lists in her later days when she could no longer go to the store herself. She'd give the list to Aunt Tudi and she and I would take care of bidness for all of us. One day, she made this particularly amusing list, which Aunt Tudi and I laughed out with a mighty fervour. That same day, Aunt Tudi had an appointment to get her hair cut. The grocery list fell out of her pocket at the beauty shop, which was one of those hoity-toity Steel Magnolias holes in the wall. So some biddy at the beauty shop got a list that had the following items on it:

4 cans vyeenie a-weenies (translation: 4 cans of Vienna Sausages)

3 pounds chicken boobs (3 pounds of chicken breasts)

To this day, I call them chicken boobs.

I have a cup of Sleepytime Tea steeping. Here's hoping it will help with my serious caffeine hangover.

I communicated with Barry last night. He's perplexed as to why I haven't yet received a copy of "Cormorant." Apparently, I actually was on his list of folks to receive a complimentary copy. I told him it didn't matter 'cos I was planning on paying for a copy of the CD regardless. So I may end up with two copies of the CD and I'm already on the waiting list for one of the Great Eggs. This makes me exceedingly happy.

I'm tossing around the idea of sending him a copy of The Chalice, but I'm leaning toward not sending it to him. The book is a homage to purple prose because I like purple prose; however, I'm afraid that Barry would find it tedious and point a finger of doom in my general direction. Then again, he does like the work of Russell Hoban, whose mastery of the grandiose writing style is beloved of many of us, including myself. Here's a lovely sampling of Mr. Hoban's ability:

The world vibrates like a crystal in the mind; there is a frequency at which terror and ecstasy are the same and any road might be taken. ~~ from The Medusa Frequency

Each of us is the forward point of a procession stretching back into the darkness. And even within oneself, every moment is a self that dies: the road to each day's midnight is littered with corpses and all of them whispering. ~~ from Fremder

Now, in no way am I comparing myself to Russell Hoban. I am but a speck of filth lucky enough to have been exposed to his brilliance. But he is a master of purple prose and he gives weeblets like myself hope that the art of such writing is not extinct. But I digress. My dilemma is whether or not to send the finished The Chalice (or the first draft as it is) to Barry. Do I want to open myself up to that? Would he even read it? Would it be an exercise in the Realm of the Pathetic for me to send it to him? Is it an exercise in the Realm of the Pathetic for me to even entertain the idea?

But he has a right to see what he's inspired. He has a right to know if he should retain a lawyer so he can sue me for defamation of character, albeit in a wholly honourable fangirl way. Blah! I don't know what to do. Maybe I should make a poll. I sure as hell ain't gonna get anymore serious writing done tonight. I'm too spazzed out.

I'm wearing toe socks for the first time this season. I have ten little blocks of ice in lieu of toes. Verily do I suffer. And my lips are seriously chapped. I've raw spots on my lower lip. In fact, I'm convinced that my lip will fall off in the middle of the night only to be devoured by one of the dogs as a midnight snack. I will then lie in bed on a respirator and buy items Hannibal Lecter has touched and ponder my revenge with the cunning use of genetically altered boars.

It pisses me off, the slaughter of trees this time of year. Everyone who kills a tree for the holidays should have that tree shoved up their chocolate wizways. Then again...not everyone has a black Nightmare Before Christmas tree to trim like yours truly. Perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh. No. Tree killers be damned!!

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Music: the news

I'm doing something I haven't done in years. I'm listening to music on headphones! Instead of being attached to a stereo, however, I'm hooked up to the laptop with a playlist comprised almost solely of Shriekmusic. That's probably not the best idea in the world right now, but blindly do I rush forth!

Years ago, particularly when I was in high school and in the late 80s and early 90s, I would shut out the world with my headphone and write voraciously. That's how Cadmus was born, via headphone midwifery, all Deeply Lined Up.

I sort of got out of the habit of listening to music on headphone during my years in Quality Assurance, 'cos I wore headphones at work all day. Also, after Granny died in 1993, I didn't feel it was right to shut out Aunt Tudi and immerse myself in my Inner World. So it's been a while.

Right now, Aunt Tudi is asleep and the animals are all at peace. So I am indulging in my guilty pleasures and letting the music evoke wonders and abominations the like of which should ne'er see daylight.

Doing everything all of the time.....

Current Mood: evocative
Current Music: Shriekback "Mothloop"

The Wheel of the Year spins and brings close to the Pagan Year with Summersend. This is a time for reflection and celebration. A time to commune with Those Who've Gone Before Us, who may still wish to tell us things left untold before their death. It's a time to remember our loved ones who have passed on to the Summerland, placing the Dumb Supper out as a token of reverence and remembrance. It's a time to dress in costumes and masks to confuse the hobgoblins and other bugaboos able to breach the Veil and pester us.
It's a time to thin out the herds and harvest the last of the fruits for the long Dark ahead.

This had long been my favourite holiday, even before I was aware of it's Pagan roots and my own Pagan nature. It was always a time of celebration in the home and it was also when Autumn seemed at her most vibrant. We began to pull into ourselves, whether consciously or subconsciously.....bringing in the warmth upon ourselves. Eating more, drinking warm drinks, relishing in Hallowe'en candy! The days were always so blustery when I was a kid, and the wind just terrorised my favourite yearly costume ~ a sheet (I was a ghost almost every year). I can still remember the biting winds and the laughter of my fellow children as we went from door to door, giving the ultimatum: Trick or Treat!

On this day, I choose to honour my grandmother, who helped to raise me. She always had a wry sense of humour and loved playing with words, especially with me, who was still learning and terribly gullible. When UNICEF was active during the Hallowe'en season, there would be kids who would say "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" and collect for that noble organisation. Granny, on the other hand, instructed me to go from door to door and say "Trick or Treat for Me Myself." Not until years later did I understand why all the adults laughed so hard when I said this. Naughty Granny!

Of course, she is the one who got me started in art. She told me, when I was 4 or so, to go sit in the corner and draw flies. So I did. Then I started drawing spider webs to hold them. Then the spiders. And I developed from there. Silly me. How was I to know Granny was being facetious and actually meant for me to draw flies?
I'll never forget the icebreaker for her and Todd. We were playing aggravation and Todd knocked one of Granny's marbles back to start. She looked him straight in the eyes, glaring, and said "Fuck you, Todd!" We were all flabbergasted and Todd became Granny's fast friend after that.

Granny was a fighter. She survived 10 heart attacks, diabetes, ovarian cancer, not counting the plethora of other health problems brought about by her Depression-era childhood, where all but just a few of the children in this country suffered some form of malnutrition due to lack of food and funds. It was the 11th heart attack that took her from us in September of 1993.

I still miss her, but I know she's near to me (or at least the essence of who she was) on this day, when the Veils are thin.

So tonight, when Aunt Tudi and I go to the GUUF to celebrate the Sabbat in the Women's Circle, it'll be Granny I honour, as I do every year.

Current Mood: touched
Current Music: Shriekback "Mothloop"

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The Cliffs of Insanity

October 2016

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Craggy 2005
From the Fuck You Division of American Greetings
15 Years
Sith Wisdom Fairy
No Sleep
Bits and Bobs
Headphones
Samhain

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