I got on my writers' group's web site last night to RSVP for the next meeting and quickly realized that I had missed this week's gathering. It hadn't even occurred to me that two weeks had gone by already. It definitely didn't feel like a fortnight, that's for sure. I guess it didn't matter all too much. I hadn't done any new writing, only had gone back and tried to work on all the critiques of last meeting, which did end up adding on two more pages to the "novel." So now I have six pages. My grandfather has been dead nearly a whole two months and I have six pages to show for it and only 10 months to go.
I suppose it's only natural that I've been a little flaky the past two weeks with the whole house hunting process. We did find a house already and have had our offer accepted, which is super speedy from what I've heard when it comes to buying a house. In a way, I'm glad that it only took two weeks, because it's such a demanding and chaotic process. So while the idea of paying both a mortgage and a rent payment for two months because we can't break our lease scares the bejeebus out of me, at least I have little excuse not to write now.
And you would think I would be full of words after last weekend, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Chris left town with his father for some male bonding time and I stayed at my Mom's, talking about Grandpa, going to Grandpa's house, visiting his grave. My senior year of high school, I lived with my grandfather for five months and I know I thought it was terrible at the time, but I can't remember why. So I even dug out the journal I kept senior year and stayed up late at night reading it in hopes of figuring some of that out. Unfortunately, I was involved in a very ridiculous drama-filled high school romance at the time and the majority of the journal was riddled with "love is grand" or "boys suck," with a few "I hate living in Grandpa's house" thrown in there, and that was about it. So no help from that.
I'm not really sure I got the closure I was looking for being in Grandpa's house. I think it made the wound more open, to be honest. I was hoping that I would get to explore the house on my own, to have some quiet time with my memories, but my godparents were there when we showed up, so no luck. I'm not sure it would have made a difference. I'm not even sure what I was really looking for. I felt like I was the ghost in the house, not Grandpa, haunting every room, lingering for no reason in places, trying to take it all in before having to give it all up. I spent most of my time hovering near the coffee cup tree, touching a coffee cup that Grandpa didn't even use, but I felt that coffee cup alone summed up all my memories of that house. I traced the black lines on the dirty-colored porcelain with my fingers, outlining the design of vibrant oranges and their leaves, thinking about how my father used to drink his morning coffee on Sundays from those mugs, how Aunt Beth would take the pot to the living room, first filling up Uncle Jim's mug and then Grandpa's even though no one asked her to. Mom asked me more than once if I wanted to take the mug home or if I wanted the entire mug tree, but I kept saying no. What would I do with a mug tree? What would I do with these hideous '60s mugs? Part of me wanted to take everything home, and part of me wanted everything to stay exactly as it was.
The house wasn't anything like it should have been. So many things have been cleared out and what was still left was stacked against walls on top of each other, often in boxes. It didn't really matter. It was still Grandpa's house to me. I could still see it how it should have been. My cousins are moving into it, changing things around and painting, but I think no matter how they decorate or renovate, I'll still be able to walk into that house and see things just as they always were, rewind the clock and see everything in its proper place, my grandfather rocking happily in his plush mauve lazyboy in the living room.
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