Just when I feared my blog was at risk of falling out of use the last seven days happened. I don't even know where to begin to describe the week, except to say that since my Nana passed away just over a month ago things have come to pass that were entirely unexpected, and it seemed to play itself out in a whirlwind this week. It all started with a lollipop and some confetti:
Those of you who've known me for some time probably know that my Nana and I were very close my whole life. She wasn't just the warm, loving matriarch of our family; she was also my confidant, playmate, and fellow mischief monger. We are utterly connected, and as we grew older together she was ever embracing more and more of her childlike self, so that we could meet somewhere in the middle and playfully embrace life together every perfect time we had the chance. This meant things like sneaking out of the house with my Poppop at 11:00 at night to get late-night cheesecake at 24-hour diners, sitting on the couch nibbling entire boxes of cellas together, a lifetime of trying to sneak an early peek at unopened Christmas presents, and whimsical days of eating popcorn and gawking at cute boys at Circuses. My spirit, I think, is somehow infused with much of her own. I've never taken it lightly that my middle name is hers, that in a family of hazel, green, and brown eyes both of ours are blue.
You might also know, or you might not, that my Nana loved to try to sneak trinkets and silly things out of restaurants and diners...forks, salt shakers, sugar packets, etc...completely harmless but it always earned her a good scolding from all of us. Additionally, and more immediately important for the sake of this post, she also tended to ask for sweets every time we went anywhere. This could be candy, or ice cream, or cheesecake, but probably more than the others she always wanted to be rewarded with a lollipop, like a child who's behaved well at their doctor or dentist appointment. Now, I'm not an especially superstitious person, but literally since the moment she passed away last month I have been finding lollipops everywhere. And I don't really eat candy, but these lollipops keep showing up everywhere I go. More significantly they're usually dum-dums, and I don't even know if they sell those in England. Yet, every couple of weeks or so I find one lying on the ground, once on the floor in front of my bedroom door at my flat. The day my Nana passed away my Aunt found one lying on the ground next to the car door at our usual diner. 
As if all of this wasn't enough then came the confetti. The day I got home to England after flying back to America for the funeral, I dropped my suitcase onto the floor and collapsed onto my bed after a long, physically and emotionally draining journey, and as I turned over onto my side I saw a tiny glimmer next to my eye on the pillow where I was resting my head. I sort of sat up to look at it, and lying there on the pillow was a single piece of golden confetti, in the shape of a graduation cap. The sequence of events here is significant for the skeptics amongst us...I simply walked in the door, set my bags down on the floor about five feet away, and laid down in bed. And there was a piece of confetti on the middle of my pillow that I am certain was not there when I left...as it turns out, it is identical to the confetti my family used at my baby cousin's high school graduation party in Long Island, New York, a couple of weeks before Nana left us. If it is all merely coincidence and nothing more then it's a lovely one that makes me smile, but for me these lollipops and that tiny piece of confetti have been the kisses on the cheek I miss most about her. They've meant feeling like she's with me when I need her most, as if to assert that she's not far away, that it's all going to be ok. The family is going to be ok. And that's where all of this starts.  | ||
| Blissful afternoon in Edinburgh, eating ice cream at the park with friends |
I think the best way to do this is to explain the timeline of a few events: I woke up on Monday morning in York, went to sleep on Monday and Tuesday night in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was back to sleep in York on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday I was sleeping on a bus that was taking me all the way to London through the night, and then on to Paris. By Saturday afternoon I'd spent some time in Paris, and by Saturday night I was in Vernon, sleeping just a couple of miles from Giverny, where Claude Monet once painted his waterlilies. On Sunday morning I woke up to French bread and coffee, went to Monet's jardins et maison for a brief but breathtaking visit, walked through the Impressionists' Museum gardens, and then got into the car and headed to spend the next couple of days in a beautiful seaside town in the north of France called Honfleur. Apparently it is a very popular tourist spot with the Brits. Monday night I got onto a train and made my way to the outskirts of Paris to sleep in a beautiful flat in the business district. I woke up on Tuesday morning in Paris, made my way via the Metro to the bus station, drove through the afternoon to Calais, boarded a ferry, made it back to London by early evening, waited anxiously for a few hours in Victoria Station, and by 5 am on Wednesday morning I was back sleeping in my bed in York. Wow? Wow.
Now, I do have the most insatiable appetite for travel ever, but even for me this week was, quite simply, nuts. But the thing is, I feel like it's expected of me, kind of like the torch has been passed on or something (admittedly silly) like that. My Nana's story is built on the greatest love story I've ever heard. It's the greatest love story most people have ever heard. Just ask and I'll tell you sometime. I just keep thanking God because I don't know what else to make of all this, for every perfect day that I get to savour. Who knows if my own will be a love story, but these days I can feel my roots spreading out, soaking up rain and planting themselves right where I am in the soil of a story that is beginning to brew beneath the surface of my life, and whether it turns out to be a love story or not it will be my story, and so far it is turning out to be indescribably beautiful...
This is all stirring up so much poetry in me :)
