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Columnist: Anastacia Tolbert
Let
Go and Let Them Masturbate Meditate Get
Some Sleep Eat
Breakfast Call
My Best friend Pick
Up My Crazy Ass Grandma Who I Love From The Airport With the way the day going the way it is, which includes Mother and I flexing our ovaries at each other, I doubt I’ll get my masturbation or meditation time in. These two things are important to me. In fact, I’d choose either of those over eating breakfast but according to my best friend who lives a million fucking G.P.S. yards from me, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Fuck her. And I mean that in a loving way. That’s the thing about my relationship with my best friend, I can say something like, ”Fuck you Lotus Puff,” and she’ll laugh, and yell through her organic lipstick “I know you want to Cheeto breath, get a life and eat a salad.” That’s how it is with us. And that’s how I like it. I often wonder, sometimes while procrastinating meditating if we will always be this way. And then I find my Zen…which is sometimes in men or wine or Cheetos and I realize life is really about enjoying where you are when you’re in it. Unless of course you happen to be in a car with my mother. My mother who hates my grandmother. My mother whose entire spirit is the embodiment of a horrible, horrible wedgie. I asked her if she would tell Grandma the news. She almost cursed. “What the h…why on earth would I tell her? She doesn’t need to know.” It is a known fact in the Ladue household that my grandmother and my mother love to hate each other. When I was prepubescent and stuffed animal crazy this highly publicized fact tormented me to no end. Sometimes, they would even sit down and eat together to appease me. Funny, when you’re ten, the adults don’t realize you’ve got a natural born what-the-hell-do-you-take-me-for-Barney? detector built in to your ponytail or chubby cheeks. Still, I admired them for trying. They don’t try anymore. My grandmother plops down on my sofa proudly wearing her favorite tee shirt, which reads, “Some days I feel like a slut, some days I don’t,” and an unlit cigarette….for effect only. Your mother doesn’t like my shirt. Does that surprise you, Grandma? No. But it bugs the helicopter out of me. It’s a wonder you didn’t end up plastic wrapped. Grandma says things that are…strange or weird or crazy or just a little “special.” I think that’s one of the reasons I love her so much. She’s 75-year-old woman who is enjoying her dirty thirties, for the third time. She has momentary losses of manners and tact, but never memory. Tonight, after we drink wine, fart and slurp spaghetti, she’ll tell me version number 244 of her one lost love in Times Square. So there I was in New York City all by myself. I was writing a memoir of some sorts and needed to get away from your grandfather and your mother and uncles and aunts. I packed my things and left. I just left. I cooked and cleaned before I left. And then I left. Took off like a blue Boeing. I hadn’t planned on talking to anyone. Only writing. But even a writer has to eat right? Right. I see her lips moving and I am listening but there is something about Grandma this time that makes me want to listen harder. Hug harder. Laugh harder. So I do. This time I don’t finish her story because I know it. I just listen. The way I did when I was 8. Barefoot, topless, ice cream cone in hand. She tells the story the way she did when I was 8. Barefoot. Purple Moo-moo, coffee with whip cream in left hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. You want to know why I fell in love with your grandfather? Yes. Because he is the only man I know that when he stubs his toe it makes his opthomalic nerve twitch. What? That’s what I mean. He is a drive by fruitcake. Grandma, you lost me. That’s okay. One day you’ll meet a version of “the one,” and you’ll feel the same way. What do you mean a version of the one? I
mean I don’t believe in that soul mate shit. You could have a million
soul mates and you just choose which one you want to be with at that
time and place and situation. You don’t think Granddaddy is the one? Yes, because I chose him. Humans have free will. For instance, remember yesterday when we were at the burger joint and we were right there! Right there by the thank you’s and that guy still decided to leave his trash on the table? He could have easily got up like we did and thrown his leftover cheeseburger in the thank you but no, he decided in his big shot black suit and tie that he would leave it there for some underpaid person to pick up. Choices. We all make choices. I don’t think there are a million soul mates walking around for me. Not even two. Not even one. Then my dear you just made a choice not to find one. It’s as simple as that! Mother and I drive in silence. She is uncomfortable because we don’t have the buffer of MIA blaring behind us. The soundtrack of our lives on this particular drive to the hospital is our breathing. Your grandmother is like inclement weather. I don’t mind when she comes but I know I had better cover everything up and be prepared for some of things to get damaged. Why do you feel that way, Mother? Grandma’s a fucking riot. She is. That’s it. Just fun. Do you know she has spent more time with you this last week than she and I have ever spent in my life? It just makes me mad and hurts my feelings. It pisses you off, Mom. Say it pisses you off. Pi sseee ssss yoouu the fuuuuckkk off!! It doesn’t do what you said, it makes me mad and hurts my feelings. This is it, I think to myself. All this bullshit is killing me. I’m telling Grandma today Mom has cancer. Today.
So what do you want to do today? Go to a movie? Go to dinner? Go to the park? Go get drunk? What shall we do, kiddo? Do you mind me calling you kiddo although you’re in your twenties? No. I don’t mind. All right, who stole your lint brush? What, Grandma? Who or what’s got you all snippety snappity? I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my mind. Like what? Because if you are still thinking about the one, he won’t come. And by the way dear. If the one is a she, the rules still apply. You could have half soul mates that are male and the other half female you know. You just have to choose. Thanks. Yeah. I’m not thinking about the one today. I was thinking about you and mom’s relationship. Hm. I see. So where are we going? Grandma, I want to talk about this. Why aren’t you and Mom close like you and I are close? Because I can’t stand your mother. I love her. She is mine and you don’t get to choose the kind of baby you’ll have, but I don’t like her. What? Why not? That’s an easy one. Because she doesn’t like me.
My grandma always goes through my purse. That’s what she does and I let her. In this ritual we started to incorporate that I go in her purse, too. This is my new one honey. Looks like a pen doesn’t it! Yeah…I used to have that one, too! This one is a mardi gras and the other was a bar mitzvah. I tried anal. I tried anal. Mom has cancer, Grandma. I can’t keep it from you anymore. She opened up a piece of double mint gum. Then another. Then another. Then another. I knew she was shaken up because she usually only puts two pieces at once in her mouth. She put the vibrator, dildo, anal beads, rouge, lipstick, wallet, mini dream catcher, and small notebook back in her purse. She stared at me and started laughing like a house music CD on loop. Grandma, why are you laughing? It’s funny. It’s not funny. It is funny. It’s the kind of funny like when a kid shits on your carpet. You know why else it’s so goddamn funny? No. Why? I’m in remission, my dear.
My grandmother will be in town for three more days. In those three days we are suppose to finish t-peeing the town. We are supposed to have more anti-love chats. Eat and cook as much food as possible. We won’t. I’m moving in with my bff. I’m leaving the three of them to bitch fest it out. Grandma. Mother. Cancer. It’ll all work out fine and plus, Grandma will know what the helicopter to do.
Photo Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Anastacia (Stacey) Tolbert is a writer, Cave Canem Fellow (2007), journalist, workshop facilitator, and playwright living in Seattle, Washington. "Brown Suga Poet" is author of the poetry book, Baring My Soul, and the recipient of the 2004 San Diego Journalism Press Club Award for the article “War Torn.” Tolbert is a Seattle Arts and Lectures Writer-in-Resident, Writers in the Schools (WITS), http://www.lectures.org/wits_writerbios.html, and the Hugo House Youth Site Manager www.hugohouse.org. She is writer, co-director, and co-producer of GOTBREAST? Documentary (2007): a documentary about the views of women regarding breast and body image www.myspace.com/gotbreastdoc. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction has been published in Clamor Magazine, Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees (Nominated for the 2007 NAACP Award), I Woke Up and Put My Crown On: 76 Voices of African American Women, Essence Magazine, Number One Magazine, The Nubian Chronicles, San Diego City Beat, The Pitch Weekly, Hair Piecez Anthology, and The Source Magazine. She is the featured spoken word artist on the Sleeping Giant CD Compilation (San Diego California), UNSPOKEN CD (San Diego, California) www.giantsarise.com and member of The Black Poet's Collective.
Visit Stacey at http://www.myspace.com/brownsugapoet, or you can e-mail her at writeforfood@hotmail.com. |
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