The Anti-Grandma

This is what I heard out of the mouth of my petite bottle-blonde grandmother as she inhaled and exhaled her cigarette and the conversation took and odd turn. We had just finished our Thanksgiving dinner and I sat on the porch, enjoying the unusually warm weather and keeping company with the smokers. It began when my sister-in-law Maggie asked my grandmother some questions about her upbringing in Milwaukee during the fifties. My Nana told the story of her sister Sharon, who was the beauty in the family, and how their apartment building in the third ward was next to a supper club, where Tony Bennett, who at the time may have still been known as Tony Benedetto, spotted Aunt Sharon and she somehow ended up with his phone number. The next day, she dialed the number. It rang, and when it was answered she hung up, leaving her and the rest of the family with a "what if" scenario to ponder for years to come.

I however, had heard the story and sort of tuned it out. The conversation then drifted into other singers; Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, and finally to Willie Nelson. Nana remarked how she always liked Willie Nelson, despite her mother's forlorn distaste of a "dirty, old pot-smoking hillbilly." My Italian great-grandmother had good taste, and it generally revolved around all things Italian, such as Tony Bennett. From there, the conversation went awry and that is where I tuned in.

"Marijuana never did much for me."

Now let me fill in the lines. My family is not perfect, though we have managed to maintain a conservative, mid-western, middle-class appearance. My grandmother, married three times, raised four children, and while eccentric overall, has never been known to use any substance other than her nicotine and the occasional glass of brandy or champagne. She certainly has never been known to roll doobies.

"I haven't had a weed since Talia's wedding."

"What?" I turned my body around toward her and from the step, on which I was sitting, peered up at her in her chair." She responded to my sudden disturbance in a defensive manner,

"That was a tough time for me. I just needed to get through it."

Indeed it was a difficult time for her. She had recently been through a divorce and my grandfather had brought his new girlfriend-his very serious girlfriend-who had a lot of things Nana didn't have: a successful career, her own money, and an age that was noticeably younger than Nana's. The wedding would showcase it all. But Nana had a few tricks up her sleeve and she definitely used them.

Nana is and has always been the anti-grandma. When she began to go gray in her early fifties she went blond. And a blond Italian woman doesn't need to wear pantyhose, and she didn't. Nor did she wear other sorts of undergarments that many consider essential, yet she has always managed to pull it off. Her wardrobe is extensive and somewhat of a fantasy. Nevertheless, she has always played the role of grandma to her grandchildren-never missing the Grandparents' Day luncheons or Christmas plays at school, and never failing to spoil us on visits with Hostess cupcakes, and candy money for the corner store. In regards to love and grandmotherly roles, she was great. But she did it her way, with her own style.

She was diagnosed with manic-depression later in her life, long after her children had been diagnosed, and when looking back and considering her personality, one could easily pin-point many of her manic episodes. Nana is an artist-a painter, and she always managed to see her world unattached from that part of her. As a child I recall her learning to sew Christmas ornaments and decorations and within a few short days the house was full of tiny fabric-stuffed and styrofoam ornaments of red and green. Shortly thereafter she discovered how to make roses by mixing bread and glue, then sculpting the petals and attaching them to floral wire, then painting them. Within weeks everyone had a house filled with artificial rose bouquets. Eventually she did manage to channel much of her creative energy into painting. She was a watercolor painter of abstract mono-prints, then Victorian houses, then still lives of cabbage heads, portraits of women, women's hats atop old furnaces, bluebirds, New Orleans French Quarter style balconies, and more recently, Picasso-like warped faces of men. She had her phase of painting on glass surfaces and soon every wine glass, juice glass, and jar was hand-painted with tiny floral designs. When she learned how to re-upholster it was of ottomans. She went to flea markets and second-hand stores scouting out old ottomans and recovered them beautifully, then displayed them in her formal living room, which essentially became an "ottoman room." After that it was gourds. She dried them and painted them. But Nana never had the energy to sell her creations; she was only interesting in alleviating the manic energy that creating them did.

At my high school graduation she got tired of the heat of the packed gymnasium during all the hoopla speeches, and while all graduates and spectators were seated appropriately for this special event, Nana stood up from the bleachers and walked down to the open door at the end of the gymnasium and stood behind the platform to smoke. She puffed away, unaware of the laws against smoking on public school grounds, and with the sun shining in on her, we all watched in a mixture of amusement and wonder at this boldly interesting woman.

Her second divorce, which ended a marriage of nearly thirty years, was tough on the already complicatedly blended family, and especially true to the sentimental members like me, as Nana noticed. I clearly recall my visit to her after hearing the news from my parents of the divorce. We sat in the kitchen of the big beautiful house she would soon be giving up and I cried. After that Nana went on to tell me about reincarnation and how some of us have lived many lives, and I must be an "old soul." But Nana is honest when it comes to philosophies; she lets them in and out as need be. When I was about fifteen Nana had a "Psychic party," which is similar to a "Tupperware" party, minus the Tupperware and plus some "psychics" who, for $10 would read your palm in the basement, your tarot cards in one of the bedrooms, or the crystal ball in the living room, and everyone got their charts read for free-in the kitchen.

Shortly after the second divorce Nana packed up and moved from Indiana, where she had lived since her first marriage nearly 40 years ago, back to her old stomping grounds of Milwaukee. She hooked up with her could-have-been-married-to-Tony Bennett sister Sharon, also a divorcee, and they rented an upstairs, two-bedroom apartment together, as if they were twenty-somethings. They relived their youth, re-discovering neighborhood acquaintances at the Italian festival and supper clubs. With divorce settlement money they opened an eclectic shop called "The Razzmatazz" on the popular Brady Street. However they soon learned that their busy, fast-paced lives, which included many nights at the "High Hat", where Nana began dating the saxophone player, just weren't cut out for entrepreneurship, so they closed the shop. Nana eventually made some money on the resale of a historical home and came back to Indiana.

Now back to the weed-toking Nana with the tricks up her sleeves at my wedding. Nana broke the first rule by wearing white, but it was a beautiful vintage cotton eyelet sort of material-perfect for a July 31^st wedding. She arrived early and dressed with the bridesmaids and myself, intimidating one who was asked to do up her complicated buttons in the back. With all the bride's business on a wedding day I hadn't really noticed Nana much until I watched the video and saw what everyone else got to see when Nana was escorted down the church's center aisle-a well-defined thong revealed through her thin white cotton dress. And this vision was confirmed at the end of the ceremony when she was escorted back out. What I didn't know didn't hurt me. It was my wedding, but Nana was fighting all kinds of demons just to be there. So I didn't care. I love her no matter what-thong and all. I will admit, however, to a bit of jealousy when my cousin was married the following year in October and Nana was escorted down the aisle in a long coat-like gown, trimmed in fur-a bit more of a conservative look.

A "dry" dinner reception followed the ceremony; a major clashing of my religious convictions to that of my family's reveling predispositions. So after the cake-cutting, bouquet and garter-throwing rituals, the game was over and we were off to the honeymoon, leaving the family behind, roused. Pictures later revealed that their merrymaking was not much discouraged by my prohibition-it just took place at the corner tavern, where somehow, some way, Nana got mixed up with a seedy crowd. I don't really want to know the details, and she saw that on my face as we passed out good-bye hugs at the end of our Thanksgiving celebration.

"Oh, forget it, Talia. Don't think about it anymore. I'm still the same Nana."

I can't quite forget about it though, and at the same time I can't quite picture it either. Who could? But she is still the same and now I have another story to prove it.