I have two origami boxes made by Rachel, my thirteen-year-old granddaughter, several years ago. She was into origami then, and would often litter my desktop with paper cranes in a variety of sizes and colors.
I saved those, too, but it seemed they would never be in short supply, and so one day when I was cleaning out my studio, I threw them away.
But Rachel suddenly passed her origami phase and the cranes were never replaced. I have only these little boxes, one marked “box” on the top and “bottom” on its bottom. The other one, a light blue, is more intricate, as if woven. I wouldn’t know how to make one myself.
Sometimes I think it must annoy my daughter, Blixy, that I so fervently protect a grandchild’s small handmade objects when, as a mother, I never saved a thing she made for me. We moved often and I unsentimentally threw out all but the essentials. What I deemed essentials. When Blixy asked if we could keep her favorite cup, I said “no” and tossed it.
My special relationship with Rachel goes beyond saving her art and crafts. We are both learning to play the piano with the same teacher, and we play duets together whenever we can. Rachel has musical talent. I don’t.
I’m learning to play for the fun of it, and perhaps as a precaution against Alzheimer’s. (Isn’t everyone my age working at that these days?) Rachel takes the hard parts in the duets, and I do the easy ones. She learns quickly. I’m slow.
When Rachel and Blixy and I went away on vacation together recently, Rachel and I insisted on bringing our small keyboards with us. We were staying in a little cottage in the woods, and the keyboards took up a lot of space in the living room where Blixy slept on the sofa bed.
Poor Blixy—having to humor her teenage daughter and her mother.
I think Blixy likes the idea that Rachel and I are pals. Blixy was close to her own grandmother when she was a girl—not quite in the same way, but they spent a lot of time together.
Sometimes Rachel complains to me about her mother, and then I am torn. I am not used to anyone criticizing Blixy in front of me, and my first instinct would be to defend her if someone did. Yet I am pleased that Rachel confides in me. I would never have confided in my own grandmother. I didn’t even want to be around her.
And so, a little guiltily, I don’t contradict what Rachel says about her mother.
This girl tells me her dreams, and just today sent me the lyrics to her favorite Radiohead song—Pyramid. Yesterday when she was spending her one day a week with me, we collected dead bugs in the basement, and I showed her how to scan and Photoshop them.
We blew the bugs up large and they looked UGLY. Then we sent the image in an email to Blixy at work and to Rachel’s brother, and even to her father.
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Rachel is sometimes rude to her mother, but she is never rude to me. When her mother comes to pick her up at the end of the day and we’ve finished dinner, Rachel is ready to go home. Blixy talks to me about her day, and Rachel is bored.
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I can see from the lyrics why Rachel loves the Radiohead song. I just wish I could love it, too.