Sunday, November 17, 2019

Wool and berries

   During my childhood and early adult years, my sister, my father and I would go out to the grandparents' house for family gatherings. These were generally on Jewish holidays, but sometimes included Thanksgiving, I believe. but I might be wrong about that.
    After a long train ride to the Van Wyck station in Queens, my grandfather (and sometimes grandmother) would pick us up and drive us to their home, which had a smell that I recall as particular, but has over so much time for me become vague. Perhaps it was of moth balls. I remember more specifically the candies that they would offer us younger ones from a heavy glass bowl. They were shaped and colored like blackberries and raspberries. The light grey poly blend wool gloves that I often wear for my morning walks in early morning and chilly Golden Gate Park have a smell that remind me of those candies. Mustier, with a slight sweetness. I am often amazed that I am able to experience some things so vaguely yet with so much force.
   I kind of half-enjoyed going way out there to Jamaica, and even though it felt like we were interlopers, Emily, dad and I still felt like some kind of unit. The rest of the family, the cousins, aunts and grandparents, seemed to exist in a world so complete before we would arrive and we would leave. We were there, seemingly out-of nowhere, then gone. When I think about my own death, I imagine it similarly.

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