Browsing Tag

family

Writing

When Death Happens, Nature Welcomes You.

Since my grandmother’s death, I’ve found myself wanting to immerse myself in nature for many reasons.

First, I want to escape my daily routine — to get out of my head, which has become a very manic place— and second, because I want to be surrounded by life. To hear the conversations amongst birds and prairies dogs. To watch the deer, and the bighorn sheep, and the elk scavenge for food, mate or relish the sun. To see the leaves turn from a morbid brown to a thunderous green. To watch the Western flowers burst from beds of dirt and parched grass.

This want has brought me all over the valleys and peaks of Colorado as of late, with trips to Rocky Mountain National Park, the Flatirons of Boulder, the mesas of Golden and the red rocks of Colorado Springs.

Leading up to now, my view had mostly been of hospital walls. My grandmother — my dear, beautiful second mother — had been ailing back home in Upstate New York, and I wanted to see her as much as I could. A broken hip in August (more…)

Hipstercrite Life

Hearing the words “you have cancer”

Grandma

Grandma getting her hair did three days after her diagnosis

We heard those terrible, dreadful words- “you have cancer”- on Tuesday.

My grandmother, my stoic, indestructible grandmother, was diagnosed with lung cancer.

They found it by accident. She had fallen and wanted to see if she fractured her rib. A small shadow on her lung made itself known on an X-ray, and then a CAT scan. The doctor in the ER wasn’t sure what the small shadow was, so he recommended that she see an oncologist.

An oncologist?!

Half of me thought it was impossible- ridiculous– that Grandma could have cancer. The other half knew for certain that she had cancer, but it was still small. She was asymptomatic, minus the general fatigue she felt as an 88-year-old woman with arthritis.

I arrived home for the holidays just in time for Grandma to see the oncologist, who ordered a biopsy. At the hospital, my grandma, mom and I made each other laugh. We were nervous, and the laughter felt good. Grandma was not (more…)

Austin, Hipstercrite Life

I Wasn’t Born in Texas, But I Got Here at an Average Speed

Oh man, did it feel good to stay away from the computer this weekend!
I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday and that most of you are still on break and not at work reading this post.
Wanted to share with you last Friday’s CultureMap post. It meant a lot to me. It’s about the the generous and familial culture in Texas and how inspiring and comforting it is.
I hope I don’t offend any of my fellow Upstate New Yorkers here. I think you’ll get what I mean…

I Wasn’t Born in Texas, But I Got Here at an Average Speed

I’m a Yankee. Born and raised in the armpit of the Rust Belt. In the land of fallen big box giants, frost-bitten morale and Wonder Bread tans.

I have not lived in the North in over seven years, but one can never really change where they’re from, right? Where you were born is in your blood. Always.
The fact that I’m a Yankee is not something I advertise, but it’s difficult to hide when you develop instant heartburn just looking at Polvo’s salsa. The sweat on your (more…)

Hipstercrite Life

And You Made it All Ok

Wow, I was, like, a super-bitch to you as a kid.” I said to my mother on the phone yesterday.

Nah. Not really. You were a kid. You didn’t know any better.

No, I mean, I wouldn’t let you cry. I’d get angry if you cried. You had to be my mom and nothing else. You couldn’t be human. I’d get so angry at you the times you showed any emotion over Dad leaving. I’m sorry, Mom.”

This conversation occurred at the exact moment my father sent me an email out of the blue explaining to me “why he is the way he is.”

This sounds like the beginnings of a “heavy” post, but it’s not. These are interactions I have with my parents on a semi-regular basis due in part to me becoming more objective over my parents divorce as I grow older, me apologizing more and more to my mother for not letting her mourn the divorce, and me occasionally snapping at my father for always being the good-time fun guy I used to idolize. I still look up to my dad, but in different ways than I used to and the matters (more…)