A Plunge

Okay. I actually have an assignment for real, and I have been putting and putting and putting it off. I'm not sure why, and it's so late now that it may even be too late, but inspired by the fact that I've found it possible to snatch enough time for my 750 words on the subject of procrastination, I am going to shoot for a start to this piece right here and now. I think part of the problem is legitimate: I'm not certain what the point should be, what I'm writing toward, I guess. But my awareness of that problem has not proven helpful in any way, shape or form, so I will just try to start, which is--I am finding--always better than doing nothing at all.

The assignment is to write about the four generations of my family spending time together: my grandmother, my mother, my daughters and me. See, it's a vague idea, right? It has no inherent point. And I pitched it in the first place; I have no one to blame but myself. Blah, blah--I'm doing it again. Here goes. Any insight very much appreciated...

Four Generations
By Amy Wilensky

"Mama?" Lily is standing at my desk holding a pad of paper and a pen. "How do you spell 'tease?'"

"Why?" I ask, absent-mindedly, squinting at my monitor.

"I am writing a letter to Mormor," she explains. "I am going to tell her that I don't like it when she teases me." I turn to her. Lily, just 4, has been writing letters lately, along with signs, nametags, and "homework;" the ideas of self-expression and communication by means of the written word are clearly taking hold. But this is not what strikes me then.

"You do like it when Mormor teases you, I think," I say, realizing this is true, a little surprised by it.

"Sometimes," she agrees. "But I think she'll think it's funny if I tell her I don't."
She's right. Mormor, who is almost 92, will think this is funny. I don't, particularly, and my mother finds the teasing stressful, but this letter, this dynamic, has nothing to do with us. From as early on as Lily could talk, she and Mormor have had their own, unique, sometimes perplexing relationship. In fact, Mormor almost never teases my mother or me, and Lily does not play this flirtatious game with us. It is theirs, and theirs alone.

Sometimes, when we are walking down the street together--a cluster comprising baby Annika's stroller pushed by my grandmother, Lily and her various stuffed companions, my mother and I coaxing everyone along--people call out to us. "Hey, is that four generations?" It happens enough now that we just smile and nod.

The first time it happened, when Lily was an infant, we were sitting at the bar having lunch at our favorite restaurant. "What's the age span here?" a man waiting for a table asked. My mother and I looked at each other.

"Almost 90 years," I said.

"Wow. Four generations, right? That's incredibly lucky," he said, as the people seated on either side of our group checked us out, mildly curious. I hadn't yet stopped to think about it that way. Now, of course, I can't stop. Four generations. Very lucky indeed.

*

I am being summoned for an indoor picnic. I am not happy with this beginning. It is much like the other five beginnings I have for this piece, and yet again feels like it is going nowhere fast. What I want to establish, I think, is that there is something amazing about the fact that we four females, related by blood and experience, but different from each other in so many ways, have established intense and wildly different relationships with each other that give me insight, across the span of nearly a century, into who I am and who I want to be.

How can I ever get this across without resorting to platitudes? And in enough time to submit the piece before the editor who commissioned it leaves or retires (She is 36, I think.)? Tomorrow is another day.