This afternoon, in an apartment on the Upper West Side, I was asked if I'd like a glass of water. I said yes. When I took a sip, I was momentarily surprised to find the water so cold it was almost hard to swallow the first gulp--as close to ice as water can get without being actually frozen.
And then, I was no longer in this kitchen nook but in a tiny kitchen in a tiny apartment in the woods about thirty years ago, an apartment I could suddenly see as clear as day in my mind's eye. I saw the blue couch in its plastic cover, the lamps with bases like china dolls, the sheen of the coffee table, the blue jar filled with hard candies, the half walnut shell with a picture of me taped inside hanging from the wall on a piece of gold cord, a handmade gift from a ten-year-old girl to her grandmother. How did I get there? It was the water.
A quirk of my grandmother, my father's mother, who died when I was fifteen, is that she only drank water that was extremely cold. She kept it in the refrigerator, which she kept at the coldest setting, and when you asked for a glass of water you got this: that almost numbing sensation followed by the ultimately satisfying quench of thirst, a pleasurable experience, ultimately, so much so that I have always considered frigid water a genuine luxury, on the few occasions I have been served it as cold as hers.
And I could see my grandmother: her red hair, thick and wavy like my father's and my aunt's, cut in short layers and set professionally, the fine lines around her eyes, her "house dress," flowered and to the knee, the veins in her legs, which I have, too.
It is true that we do not forget those we love. But sometimes it is surprising how and why we remember them.
2 comments:
Wow Amy. It was a shock to see this memory come up, almost like the ice-cold water, which I didn't remember as one of my mother's habits. Thanks for being such a keen observer.
Where are the posts? Are you on vacation? I miss you.
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