Day: March 15, 2019

The Painting

On a warm afternoon, Gram goes by the lake with her easel and starts painting.

Gram has done and accomplished so many things in her life, sometimes you just might forget, before anything else she’s a world-class painter. Fifty years ago, people paid millions for one of her pieces. Nowadays she rarely ever creates more, so today is just that much more special.

I join her by the lake and she smiles at me, puts a new blank canvas on the easel… And tells me to hold the pose.

Holding the pose is tiring, and when she’s done and the weather has cooled down, I take a beautiful nap under the shade of a tree.

San Myshuno Anglers

One afternoon, I mention to Gram in passing that I’m pretty sure I’ll never be as good as fishing as dad is. So she takes it as a personal challenge to teach me, and on a weekend we head to San Myshuno for a drink… with our fishing canes in our bags.

The city’s rarely peaceful, but that day, silently staring at the water with Gram, it sure feels like it.

Gram’s touch

Having Gram around means there’s always fresh flowers in the living room. Bees buzzing in the courtyard, with honey they’ll only ever allow her to harvest. And Loladorada gets double the cuddles.

I keep doing everything I’d normally do, but everything looks and feels so much warmer.

The Roommate

When I get back home, something has changed. For starters, I’m not sleeping in my own bed anymore. I have a roommate.

You see, Gram is getting old. Very old. And though it pains her to admit it, she doesn’t feel as comfortable living by herself. So when she asked me, her great-granddaughter, the only person with space in her house, if I could open my door to her…

Of course, I said yes. Having her close is worth sleeping on an air mattress, and that’s without even mentioning her cooking. The first breakfast with her here is something else!

At night, under the rain

I’m very rarely in Windenburg at night and this side of the city is absolutely beautiful. It’s still raining, but I decide to go for a jog around the modern neighborhood anyway. As usual, good training for when I’m back in Selvadorada.

Gardening Day

It’s Gardening Day! You may remember it at this yearly holiday where my family gets together to garden. Gram says this tradition was born from our ancestors in Windenburg, who made their fortune from gardening and wanted to make sure the skill was never lost. That’s about as much as Gram has ever told me about our family history, so I decide to take this information as truth.

The weather isn’t the best this year, but Gram says it makes the plants in her herbology’s shop back garden happy, and I suppose she knows best. I’m happy I get to hang around my family for the first time since I moved out, even though Cléo and Cyril are totally paying more attention to the basil than me.

Gram doesn’t only talk about old family lore, though. While everyone else is busy, she says she has a favor to ask…

Routine on the Plaza

After that first jog around the neighborhood when I arrived, I included lunch at the stalls by the fountain in my daily routine. It’s the summer, I get to enjoy the sun on my face as I eat something I did not have to cook, and in some ways, it reminds me of the marketplace in Selvadorada.