gramma
says
says
14 april 2025
IN: sweet tea / libation scented candles, camera obscura let's get out of this country,
shauna shipman defenders, ice-sculpting.
OUT: the I-405 van nuys/victory blvd exit, the look of those magsafe phone cases (ugly, sorry), joann fabrics so-called "closing" prices.
that's an attempt at something to say i suppose!
shauna shipman defenders, ice-sculpting.
OUT: the I-405 van nuys/victory blvd exit, the look of those magsafe phone cases (ugly, sorry), joann fabrics so-called "closing" prices.
that's an attempt at something to say i suppose!
12 april 2025
The other day, I was taking my Dad home from chemo, and I stopped by the Puritan to get him a diet root beer. I walked through the front doors, the bell chimed, and there was Jazzi at the register— like some fixture of the scenery. Remember— the nice old guy, from Turkey, who’d sell to us even though we were underage?
It made me think of something I want to ask my Dad— which is: are you happy to be here, where you’ve always been? It feels like the kind of question you shouldn’t ask a dying man. But I really hope the answer is somehow yes.
Since moving back, I’ve started to think that all the same water in the Long Island Sound just whirls around endlessly— nothing ever makes it out into the Atlantic. Which sorta means anything that once happened here is still happening, and always will be. Even now, there’s probably little threads of Dan’s spit, churning in circles with the current forever.
That’s why, when I drive past Pear Tree Point at sundown, I don’t have to feel left out. Actually, I feel like a time traveler— and then it’s the night after the fourth of July, 1998. The sea is dark and glassy, and we’re fifty yards from shore. Ralph’s just gotten out of his boat, and he’s treading through the black ripples like a frog, mauling at the acrylic lip of the capsized kayak. Upside down, Dan thrashes, arms tangled in the density of kelp. With legs buckling against the deck of the cockpit, his body gives way to the saltwater. Pretty soon, the coast guard will be showing up. A mile up the cove, there are some dumb fucks from Darien lighting leftover fireworks. And my Dad’s a healthy man, waiting up in the living room to embrace me before I go to sleep in my childhood bed.
It made me think of something I want to ask my Dad— which is: are you happy to be here, where you’ve always been? It feels like the kind of question you shouldn’t ask a dying man. But I really hope the answer is somehow yes.
Since moving back, I’ve started to think that all the same water in the Long Island Sound just whirls around endlessly— nothing ever makes it out into the Atlantic. Which sorta means anything that once happened here is still happening, and always will be. Even now, there’s probably little threads of Dan’s spit, churning in circles with the current forever.
That’s why, when I drive past Pear Tree Point at sundown, I don’t have to feel left out. Actually, I feel like a time traveler— and then it’s the night after the fourth of July, 1998. The sea is dark and glassy, and we’re fifty yards from shore. Ralph’s just gotten out of his boat, and he’s treading through the black ripples like a frog, mauling at the acrylic lip of the capsized kayak. Upside down, Dan thrashes, arms tangled in the density of kelp. With legs buckling against the deck of the cockpit, his body gives way to the saltwater. Pretty soon, the coast guard will be showing up. A mile up the cove, there are some dumb fucks from Darien lighting leftover fireworks. And my Dad’s a healthy man, waiting up in the living room to embrace me before I go to sleep in my childhood bed.
11 april 2025
Since I moved back home to take care of my Dad, I’ve had to drive past Pear Tree Point again, almost every day.
It’s not a pretty beach— the current is weak, so there’s always that mass of gloppy brown seaweed clogging up the water space. And it’s particularly shabby compared to places down the coast, where the city put up nicer amenities in the early 90s, like a playground; bathrooms; a tennis court.
But of all the little beaches and piers along the Long Island Sound, old Pear was homebase for the gang from Basin Ridge. We’d bring the kayaks and launch off, or there’d be a bonfire— or sometimes we’d just sit and drink beers in the trunk of Patrick’s Jeep until the hours of the early morning. That summer when it happened to Dan, it was just before I left for St. John’s, and we were getting hammered nearly every weekend.
I think I remember Dan was going to enlist in the military, or at least that’s what he’d say when someone got on his back. Truth is, I don’t know if he ever really got to make plans. It wasn’t the sort of thing we talked about— the future— because I sensed it was a sore spot for him that he was the only one in our group who wasn’t going off to college in the fall.
I think everyone feels left out of something, in some way. Sometimes I wish I’d done some of the blow that Ralph had gotten from his cousin in Manhattan, so that the last thing Dan said to me wasn’t that I was a pussy. And sometimes, as awful as it is, I wish I’d been out there in the water, too. Can you call it FOMO, when your best friend drowns without you?
It’s not a pretty beach— the current is weak, so there’s always that mass of gloppy brown seaweed clogging up the water space. And it’s particularly shabby compared to places down the coast, where the city put up nicer amenities in the early 90s, like a playground; bathrooms; a tennis court.
But of all the little beaches and piers along the Long Island Sound, old Pear was homebase for the gang from Basin Ridge. We’d bring the kayaks and launch off, or there’d be a bonfire— or sometimes we’d just sit and drink beers in the trunk of Patrick’s Jeep until the hours of the early morning. That summer when it happened to Dan, it was just before I left for St. John’s, and we were getting hammered nearly every weekend.
I think I remember Dan was going to enlist in the military, or at least that’s what he’d say when someone got on his back. Truth is, I don’t know if he ever really got to make plans. It wasn’t the sort of thing we talked about— the future— because I sensed it was a sore spot for him that he was the only one in our group who wasn’t going off to college in the fall.
I think everyone feels left out of something, in some way. Sometimes I wish I’d done some of the blow that Ralph had gotten from his cousin in Manhattan, so that the last thing Dan said to me wasn’t that I was a pussy. And sometimes, as awful as it is, I wish I’d been out there in the water, too. Can you call it FOMO, when your best friend drowns without you?