As most of my friends know, I like to tell stories. I love to tell big, tall tales, and see how many people I can get to believe them before I say halfway through the story, "just kidding, I'm making this up!" and we have a laugh. Of course this isn't mean-spirited, it's all in good fun and I never make things up to hurt people's feelings. But my favorite stories are the ones that I tell to complete strangers. Like the math teacher that I met at the bar a few weeks ago and told him I was a librarian. I felt that this was a perfectly boring thing to be in a man's eyes, and he wouldn't ask me more questions before buying me a drink. Boy was I wrong!!!
I had to remember everything I had ever learned about becoming a librarian when I was supporting this scheme I had come up with for a free cocktail.
"Where did you go to school? What did you major in to become a librarian??" he asked.
"Well, I went to Simmons of course, and I studied... library... science?" Somehow, that part was actually true. Librarians go to school to be librarians. It's not the easiest job in the world, and apparently there's a science to it. And maybe there was another reason why I knew all about this...
My grandmother was a librarian. Was? IS, she is a librarian I should say, because I don't think that when you are something for thirty-plus years you can just give it up and not be that thing anymore. She still socializes with her librarian friends, reads more books than I can possibly imagine, and is so smart and articulate. She's also fair, has a mind for equality, not the least bit racist or prejudice, (except maybe she doesn't like Muslims, but who can blame her when our family came to America after the Christian Massacre in Turkey? Don't comment on that) and an all-around great woman to have for a grandmother.
When my grandpa Henry died 23 years ago, that was it. She still wears his ring and she'll meet him in Heaven. What a love she must've had for him, right? So admirable.
I think it's because I hate the idea of her getting old when she wasn't always that old, or because my Nana is so young in comparison, but I just can't believe she's almost 80! I mean, she's perfectly fine and doesn't seem inhibited in any way so far as I can tell. I hate to even think about it when she says, "I'm old, this isn't my real hair color you know!" and she's laughing while I'm already sad. I'm a very pathetic human being when it comes to sadness. Nostalgia creeps up on me before there's a real reason to get nostalgic. It's like I'm revving up for what I know is coming, and pre-programming my thoughts for what they should be about for when I'm sad and missing the moment that I'm in right now.
The fact that my grandmother reads so many books, is one of the things that I admire most about her. I wish I had the time to read more, because even though I read the paper every day, I want to read so many things that I probably should have already! I've never read Jane Austin, I've only seen the movies. Lord of the Rings? Nope, never did it. The Great Gatsby? I could keep going all night with all the classics that "everyone's read" and I haven't. She's not even a working librarian, and she's still reading all the time! What's wrong with me??
While I work on my time management skills and my polish up on my common literature, I think I need to make the following thing a goal of mine: Before my grandmother passes away, I want to write a book. I want to write a book that everyone will want to read. As she sits in her backyard on a nice warm sunny afternoon and sips lemonade, my grandmother could be reading my book that I wrote, and that's one of the things that i want the most. She'd really be proud of me.
(And for those doubters out there, her mother lived to be 94 so I think I might have a realistic amount of time to complete this goal.)
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