lying on a tropical beach somewhere, underneath a tropical sun.

The day after grandma died I went to the beach for three days. Got a room on Madeira and spanned days sleeping in the sun, in a cabana, eating shellfish and reading fashion magazines. Taking bubble baths and sitting on the balcony, drinking red stripes and watching the waves. On St. John’s Pass dolphins were hunting fish in the bay and jumped right in front of us on the dock. I almost lost my hat to the wind and there were pelicans everywhere. Walked around half dressed in the same jumper and bikini for three days with my hair braided and the sun on my face. I bought my mom some jaded and coral earrings that were shaped like roses and made in Hawaii (which couldn’t have been more spot on for the memories I am feeling and missing). Drank Stella in a tiki hut and talked about how I would be happy on an island far away.

Today, writing this, I am in the same bikini but sitting under the cabana at my house. Mustache, my cat, is sitting at my feet purring and batting my toes. The fountain in the pool is being swept to the sides in the wind and Ol Crinkle Ear, another cat, and Mustache’s brother, is getting wet. My mom is in her house. Her house is terribly sad right now. There are photos of my grandmother all over the kitchen butcher block table and we are planning a funeral party for Sunday— Mother’s Day. This afternoon we are going to find my mother a new dress for Sunday and then driving out to Plant City to meet with a man that makes marble headstones in his home. The sun is still beautiful today and my grandmother’s banana tree is budding. My mom’s peach tree is budding too; actually, right now I am sitting next to five peaches that the bluebirds and cardinals keep stealing.


I’m trying not to say anything upsetting but I keep thinking about how when I was small, my great grandmother, grandmother, mother and I were out at a restaurant together, this was a few years before granny got sick, and ten years before grandma got sick and we were all healthy and granny told the waitress that we were four generations, together. And that sort of blew my mind. Even when I was small it blew my mind. It makes me think of animal chains and fruit trees. My grandmother died on Friday, April 30 and her mother, my granny, died on May 1, years ago. My granny was born on May 1 too. I always thought it romantic to die on the day you were born. I don't know why.

Also, I keep thinking about how, if my grandmother were still alive, tomorrow she would have to have surgery and they would cut off her feet. How that would never do for her, how she was always on the move before the past two years and how she just had to leave. When I was a kid grandma would drive us everywhere around town. When she would get upset she would drive the back roads of Keystone (just like I do now) to calm down.


Last night I watched Gilda and Gilda is just as superstitious as I am. But it all worked out in the end, in the long way, for her. Truthfully, I hate going through these feelings more than anything. Most of my time I spend alone, and happily, going on adventures and making things. Reading books and playing in my garden. Mostly I find getting attached to people the most impossible thing for me to do. Sometimes I am terribly jealous of people in love with houses and kids and things like this, and I get sort of ashamed that this isn’t the way I am. My brother is happy and married to a beautiful girl and they are going to buy a house and have kids and its nice but the thing in the world I most hope for is to live on an island for away, to have the days to myself, and to have all the love I have buried in my heart, and not play acted, to have my friends and family around on long holidays with vibrancy and health and goodness and joy but maybe only this because so far I am too superstitious to say anything true from my heart of hearts. Putting a curse on your own heart is the wrong thing to do.