It is 1974. I am four and I am dancing in circles in my grandmothers living room in Queens. Im staying over at their house, as I so often do. My uncle is home on leave from the Navy, and hes playing the Beatles White Album in its entirety on a Sunday summer afternoon. Or so I think I remember. Sometimes he plays Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart albums, but those scare me a little. Not today. The Oriental rug in the living room is thick and plush, dyed pale blue and white and yellow, and my grandparents have laid textured plastic runners over the most trafficked parts of the rug, with grips underneath to keep them in place. A year later, my grandmother will start nervously repeating the phrase Tom, watch the kaw-pit to my grandfather as he approaches the edge of the rug and the runner when he enters the living room, since hes diagnosed with Parkinsons disease that year, and begins to have difficulty with muscle movements in his legs. He will be angry and frustrated and retired from New York Telephone and different in 1975. But this memory is in the before. There are sheer gauze curtains hanging over the front porch windows. The maple tree in front of the house is still thriving, and its branches obscure the view of my cousins house across the street. Im alone, and my uncle and grandparents are somewhere else in the house. Its the first time I remember hearing this album in its entirety, and it burrows into my young psyche. The Beatles are everywhere, like air. My uncle is stationed in Hawaii, and whenever hes home, he brings us small glass jars of Mauna Loa macadamia nuts, and we eat them together at the kitchen table. I skip into the kitchen and find the jar and open it. I play with the small teal plastic top and sort the macadamias inside it, and crunch them slowly, one by one, because theyre exotic and expensive and we cant get these at the supermarket. They taste white and slightly tangy. The dogs collar jangles as she scratches herself. My grandmother would say, Playing the banjo, if she were here to witness the dog scratching her side, but she is somewhere else -- the basement, perhaps, sorting wash. I say it to myself, quietly. My grandmothers gold-plated Timex watch glints atop the covered sugar bowl, where she always places it when she undresses after work. Im alone, and Im content, and Im loved. These clear, jangly guitar notes emerge from the screech of a jet plane in the preceding track, Back in the USSR, and still, at 44, I conjure that memory, and taste Mauna Loas on my tongue.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 15:13:24 +0000
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