Time Flies...

Yep, it does. I can (still) hardly believe my kiddo is a year old. Time is draining away in a blur of diaper changes, couponin' crazes, blogging, and my most recent expedition, mystery shopping.

And today marks the 20th anniversary of my grandma Jeanne's death. It is hard to believe that she's been gone from my life longer than she was in it. I imagine this is true for a lot of people, but I feel like every few years my life undergoes a vast transformation that eclipses previous eras of my life. Right now, as I just mentioned, life is mostly about Max and frugality and making writing fun again. In other times it's been all about death, or hockey, or falling in love, or getting drunk, or theater. It feels a little like a crazy quilt, and I imagine it's partly the nature of life for things to evolve constantly, and that it's partly just my personality.

And I also think these chameleon traits, which are mostly fun and surprising, (and sometimes a little depressing in a culture that starts asking "so what do you want to be when you grow up?" far too early)are genetic. I inherited it from my mom who has enjoyed a colorful array of jobs and hobbies, and that she in turn inherited it from her mom. My grandma moved to Alaska from New York by herself as a young woman which in itself is pretty bad-ass. She slung clothes, liquor, raised two amazing, creative kids, divorced, subscribed to Playboy, volunteered, stitched costumes for the local theater, made my brother and I feel like stars and sometimes not, and she died suddenly twenty years ago today when I was fifteen.

I suspect she'd be mostly proud of the disparate seasons I've gone through. And though most days my grandma seems lifetimes away to me, because so much has changed in the last twenty years-- I can still remember the cracked lines on her feet (which alarmingly, my own feet are rapidly coming to resemble), I can remember the ruddy skin just below her collarbone, the splash of pink in the Strawberry Shortcake sheets she bought for my weekend slumber parties, and the way I felt when she'd give me a book like Little Women, or when she'd tell me we would publish my poems. I miss you, Grandma.