The Old Lady and the Swing

There are a lot of people that helped mold me into the curmudgeon that stands glowering before you today.  You would think that it was the teachers that shit on my ideas or any MTA employee.  Sure, they helped.  But, based on my family history, I'd like to think that my attitude problem was likely predestined. 

When I was 4-years old, my best friend was my great-grandmother. While it might not sound plausible, I assure you that the old lady was awesome.  She lived alone, she didn't work, she smoked cigarettes, she wore cardigans, she tucked used tissues up her sleeves, she lived for Jeopardy!, she swore like a sailor, she thought my father was an asshole and that I was the most special little guy on the planet. Obviously, this list is still my benchmark of kick-assery.
 
Because she was always home, my parents made her my de facto babysitter pretty early on. They used to dump me at her apartment for hours and hours and I couldn't have been more pleased. Even as a small child, I felt slightly misunderstood but she saw through what others were starting to raise an eyebrow at and welcomed me as an equal. 

When I would go to visit, there was a jar of (always) homemade cookies of which I was expected to eat at least two. Next to her TV chair was a bowl of mouth-puckering lemon drop candies that I would stash in my pockets. For rainy days, there were games stored at the top of her closet.  She taught me how to play Bingo and War and Go Fish and we would have epic tournaments, just the two of us.   And on nice days, she would take me outside for a picnic on the lawn or to the park to play on the playground.  The playground was my favorite part because, even though I had a swing set at home, this one was Olympic-grade by comparison.  (In truth, my swing set was destroyed by a fat babysitter whose ass bent the support bar to the ground which made us laugh until we puked.)  Naturally, the playground was always more of my favorite thing than hers. Over time, she became less enthusiastic about having to push me on the swings and she let that exhaustion become a fundamental lesson in independence.

As she grew older and her mild emphysema turned to moderate emphysema, my great-grandmother did her best to maintain her joie de vivre, which couldn’t have been easy.  The doctors had put her on an oxygen tank and she was made to use a special ventilator several times a day.  I remember that the machine made a terrible noise and shot fog out the mouth apparatus but it didn't scare me because this was the exact same machine that I had to use when my mother took me to the ER during my first asthma attack.  Having seen my great-grandmother use the machine made me feel like I was part of some hip club for the infirm.   

One nice day, she took me to the playground and sat me down on a swing before she parked herself on bench nearby.  "You know how to push yourself, right?"

"Uh-huh". I was lying.  I was trying to appear more worldly- something I still do when you ask me about my familiarity with the works of Harold Pinter.  She asked me to show her and my demonstration was a listless struggle with the chains that manifested in more sway than swing.   

"Alright, well, it's been a while since I’ve done this. Ok. First you kick your legs out strong. Let me see you do that."

I did.

"Right. Then, you tuck your knees in tight. Show me that."

I did.

"Great.  Now put them both together.  Kick, then tuck.  Then kick, then tuck."

In no time, I was soaring.  It was unstoppable.  We sat out there so long that the hazy moon began to appear in the sunlit sky.  I kicked and tucked with fury and abandon as I watched the past and the present co-mingle in the heavens above.  Then I noticed the sun start to dip on my every swing, trailing my movement.

“Why does the sun swing with me?”

She took an eternity to answer, which was her default speed in those days.  “It’s so tired,” she said.  “It wants to go to bed and sleep until morning.  It’s the moon’s turn to shine so the sun is doing its best to stay out of its way.” 

When anyone has ever asked me what super-power I would want to have, the answer has always been pretty lame: I’d want the power of intuition. 

I would want to know exactly how many times I have said the word “and” in my lifetime, so I would could determine how many of my sentences have been run-on.  And I would want a full list of all the times that I have ever doubted myself - 15 of which while writing this entry- so I could know if any of those moments were worth it.  And I would want to know the very last time that an adult picked me up when I was a child before they started to grimace, “you’re getting too heavy.”  And I want to know the last time someone held my hand when I was crossing the street or held my hand because I was afraid.  And I would want to know the last time someone ordered my dinner for me because I was too shy. And I would want to know if there will be more than one moment in this lifetime that I will be loved so entirely that it won't matter if it never happens again. 

After a few months of living in a nursing home, my great-grandmother turned to me from her mechanical bed and said, “I know that you don't like visiting me here.  And that's okay.  It’s okay that I’m not your best friend anymore.”   If I had a super-power, I would want to know that she was going to say that so I could think of a way not to let it sting my eyes with tears during the car ride home.  And if I had a super-power, I would want to rewrite time and memory and history and destiny to stop that from being the last time that I remember seeing her alive.   

When I got to college, people started to refer to me as “The 60-Year Old Man”.  What can I say?  I learned from the best.  I smoked cigarettes, I wore cardigans, I tucked used tissues up my sleeves, I watched Jeopardy!, I swore like a sailor and I thought my father was an asshole.  I did everything in my power to celebrate the image that I had grown to view with such respect. 

And, to this day, whenever I see the sun and the moon sharing the same sky- I see nothing but limitless possibilities.