new day.

name change necessary, now that our little experiment has ended.

i have arrived back in my hometown and am immediately thrust into family difficulties. i spent the afternoon at my grandfather's nursing home yesterday. he's on his way out of this world, and i watched him thrash and grab for invisible hands in the air as if some sort of bed ballet.

it was really scary and really beautiful.

we're not sure how much time he has left; maybe a few days, maybe a couple of weeks. he's stubborn even in his own death, it seems. which makes sense, if you knew my grandfather.

anyway.

it didn't take long for me to fall into my structured role as oldest child, caretaker, organizer, chef, etc. i know what i have to do and i do it. i am the calm voice for my mother as she mourns her father, trying to keep everyone afloat in this house. its my summer job.

last night i went shopping at whole foods and stocked us up for the next week, then made dinner for the kids and my mom, all the while bemoaning the fact that i didn't bring my own knives with me. i was driving, for crissakes. i didn't have to go through security! i could've brought them and made my life so much easier this summer, since the knives in my parents' house are wussies.

probably a better way to describe them out there but i can't come up with it at this point.

oh wait, here it is: they completely suck and make me mental. chopping onions was never so dangerous.

its not that big of deal in the grand scheme of things. but why is it that the little things are the ones that make me lose it? why is it that dull knives could bring me to tears?

so here i am, in the state of my birth. the smells of summer are reminders of my whole life here. the humidity alone is enough to get me nostalgic. and looking outside the window right now--seeing the maple tree's shadow across the street on the pavement giving off that eerie orangey glow that only comes with this kind of new england weather--it seems that i am really home.