It's been a while that I've wanted to write about my grandmother. She was the most authentic person I have ever met. She was just that: herself. As I child I couldn't understand what that means. But now, as I'm approaching 30, I understand how difficult it is to be just yourself.
She died the day after I became fourteen. I always knew she wouldn't be around much longer. How did I know it? Because she used to say: Such a shame I will not be here when you'll turn 15. And she used to say this like every word she uttered. A command. As if the universe would come to halt to fulfill her will.
The very talented seamstress who already in the 1940's would say that she was no fashion victim. And with the conceit to the others' helplessness that was so peculiar to her she would say: I make fashion I don't follow it. No, grandma, you've never followed anything. You were not made for that.
Her creations last until today. She wore them in the 1950's/1960's. But so did I in the 2010's. (And I have never felt so comfortable in any kind of fabric, as I feel when I dress something from her wardrobe.) She would wear many, many rings. As many rings as you and I have fingers. I rarely saw her wearing pants and NEVER, but never wearing jeans. It was not proper for her. She was not a cowboy, she would say. And how angry she would get when another seamstress wouldn't do her job right. It was like breaking the gentleman's agreement between all the seamstress that a piece of cloth must fit perfectly, with no apparent threads.
Once, as I told my grandmother's life story, a miserable soul said: Ah, so your grandmother married up. No, you silly thing, my grandmother simply got married. And like all the happy couple they were simply fit. Life might look very confusing sometimes. But it is really not. Life fits perfectly, like one of grandmother's creations. We don't need reasons to live, we don't need reasons to be who we are or to do what we love to do. Reasons come later. To explain what doesn't seem to fit.
Whenever I find myself in a situation in which I can't figure out what to do, I think: How my grandmother would do that? And the answer is always the same: She was just herself. Go, girl, just be yourself and everything will be fine. It's like going back in time and lying on her huge bed, while she passes her long red nails through my hair. If she made it by then, I can do it now.
Today, as I got the news of David Bowie's death, I sat quietly trying to remember who else had his power to overthrow society's paradigms and transform it into art. We need people in our lives to show that you are the most amazing character you can be in this show that life is. And it should be the only role you should be trying to perform in life. And while others are thinking they had been so lucky because they could share the planet Earth with him, I feel lucky because of the wonderful woman I had as a grandmother.
She died the day after I became fourteen. I always knew she wouldn't be around much longer. How did I know it? Because she used to say: Such a shame I will not be here when you'll turn 15. And she used to say this like every word she uttered. A command. As if the universe would come to halt to fulfill her will.
The very talented seamstress who already in the 1940's would say that she was no fashion victim. And with the conceit to the others' helplessness that was so peculiar to her she would say: I make fashion I don't follow it. No, grandma, you've never followed anything. You were not made for that.
Her creations last until today. She wore them in the 1950's/1960's. But so did I in the 2010's. (And I have never felt so comfortable in any kind of fabric, as I feel when I dress something from her wardrobe.) She would wear many, many rings. As many rings as you and I have fingers. I rarely saw her wearing pants and NEVER, but never wearing jeans. It was not proper for her. She was not a cowboy, she would say. And how angry she would get when another seamstress wouldn't do her job right. It was like breaking the gentleman's agreement between all the seamstress that a piece of cloth must fit perfectly, with no apparent threads.
Once, as I told my grandmother's life story, a miserable soul said: Ah, so your grandmother married up. No, you silly thing, my grandmother simply got married. And like all the happy couple they were simply fit. Life might look very confusing sometimes. But it is really not. Life fits perfectly, like one of grandmother's creations. We don't need reasons to live, we don't need reasons to be who we are or to do what we love to do. Reasons come later. To explain what doesn't seem to fit.
Whenever I find myself in a situation in which I can't figure out what to do, I think: How my grandmother would do that? And the answer is always the same: She was just herself. Go, girl, just be yourself and everything will be fine. It's like going back in time and lying on her huge bed, while she passes her long red nails through my hair. If she made it by then, I can do it now.
Today, as I got the news of David Bowie's death, I sat quietly trying to remember who else had his power to overthrow society's paradigms and transform it into art. We need people in our lives to show that you are the most amazing character you can be in this show that life is. And it should be the only role you should be trying to perform in life. And while others are thinking they had been so lucky because they could share the planet Earth with him, I feel lucky because of the wonderful woman I had as a grandmother.
