Saturday, September 02, 2006
IT ALL TALKS TO EACH OTHER
Yesterday beautiful afternoon, Kaya and I took a long walk up the mountain and out across the paddies where we found a nice wide stone wall in the shade where we could sit and look at the broad blue lake at the end of the long golden carpet of perfectly ready rice laid out in terraces down the mountainside for our very own eyes, and then beyond at all the layers of mountains across the wide water.
I took off my flannel shirt and spread it on the stone so Kaya could lay down on the wall and we talked about stuff like mountains and lakes, rice and birds, flowers and deer, seeds and farness, time and trees, clouds and sky, rain and rivers and how it all talks to each other, just like we were doing. Kaya spotted the half-moon, sort of hiding there midway in the in the southern blue day and we talked about that too, and oh, about everything.
Kaya and her sisters and her parents went home up north today. Who can I talk to that way now, on a stone wall in the shade, in summer days like these?
I feel now about Kaya and her sisters just the way I felt four years ago, when I wrote
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It is a few and those of rare talent who can weave words into a poignant beauty that has the healing ability to break my heart -- because until the heart is broken it cannot heal -- with bittersweet moments of reminder that life is a constant in memory making and the essence of memory itself. We are the memory of ourself and the memory of others as we witness the inevitable progression in linear life as it must be and should be but still -- to steal a moment on a rock wall. That's the stuff of a timeless eternity.
I read your words. I felt your emotions. I saw the beauty. I better understand my loss. So I cry...
There is something so pure and honest about the grandparent/grandchild relationship. Something I never appreciated until I too became a proud grandma.
Robert, I've only been reading your blog for the past year; so I missed Until One Day from four years ago. Thank you for bringing it back....truly beautiful...as was this post. Of course, all of your posts about your grandchildren are a special joy to me; and they share a very beautiful side of you that I find wonderfully endearing.
Robert ..many times when I remember, I find myself wondering where is the little guy who toddled down our sidewalk and joined in with his granddad as they shot at make believe crows and shouted in unison,"Pow"; then he progressed on tiny feet to the fire hydrant on the edge of the street, picked up the side chain of the hydrant to use as a microphone,then sang his little heart out for all the birds in the neighborhood sky.
He used to tell his granddad "Let's go on a wonderful walk"
Now he is now almost ten years old and he does not remember the little guy he used to be but we do. He still has a special place in our hearts along with the ten year old half grown boy of today.
After Maya went home, the only time she and her mother came up here (it is cheaper for just me to go there and see all of the relatives), I found myself in the grocery store crying over her favorite flavor of yoghurt.
They are such a gift to us, and their going is such a sadness.
It was beautifully written then, and even more so now! I want grandchildren so badly!
Thank you, but I can't take credit; every word was grandchild-inspired... spelled out straight to the heart.
Gosh, Maya's only 10, and here I am, hoping for grandchildren. Not too soon, though. ;)
And truly, my grandparents are such a gift, as I know your Kaya finds you a gift as well. She may not know it yet, but she will.
Do you pronounce her name "Ka-ya" with a long A, or "Ky-ya" with a short A? I ask because Maya is with a long A, like a New Yorker talking about the Mayor, while every other Maya we meet is My-Ya. Except my sister, for whom she was named, of course.
It's Kah-ya, in the Japanese short vowel way, meaning "Summer Night."
(Love that "like a New Yorker talking about the Mayor...")
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