care, who aren’t caught up in Mr Al Gore’s crusade. Up there on campus in their smart cars, at their smart schools, studying business or marketing. ‘Just to make the big bucks,’ she scoffs.
I shrug and tell her it was the same in my day. The girls who didn’t want to know, who only thought of themselves – goodtime girls with touted-up hair and eyes and lips, only ever wanting to eat breakfast at Tiffany’s or dance at El Morocco, its zebra stripes etched into the sidewalk.
Now it was my turn to scoff. To send out the signals of derision and disdain, snort like an old pig ready to flatten any wrongdoer. ‘It’s a fine line,’ I say, ‘between saying to each his own, and knowing in your heart that each’s own might be wrong.’
‘That it’s harming the planet,’ in her vernacular. ‘That it’s mixing up boys’ minds,’ in mine. ‘There’ll always be those types,’ we agree.
But she’s young and has ideals, believes it can be different. I, though, accept the adage. How, in the end, Stanley did prefer a goodtime girl mixing up his mind. How I had to stop my reading and get out working to put food on the table.
But Katie? What of Katie and her planet? I see the tears on her cheeks and the fear in her eyes and my old heart bleeds. My wasted old dying heart bleeds fresh.
So here we are at this celebration. Of what? Age? My past? Katie’s future? It’s fall, a season of celebration. The trees are turning, soon we’ll be bunkering down for the winter, but now we have time to give thanks. For what we have, for what we must preserve. For what we are about to receive?
‘Shouldn’t we be celebrating your innocence, young lady? Your youth? Your future instead of my age?’ I ask.
‘We’re celebrating wisdom, Granny, your life! What you’ve done, what you’ve achieved! That without you, there’d be no us!’ She’s getting exasperated now. I’m putting questions, considerations, obstacles into the path of her brave new world.
‘That’s what a funeral is for,’ I say. Two can play this game.
‘Granny!’ There is no comeback.
’Benito Martinez Abrogan,’ she mutters and goes back to her mixing and stirring.
Here and now, that’s what I’d like to celebrate. Our family. Four generations of women. All hopes and dreams caught up in the next daughter of Eve, all the way down the line. To Katie and beyond. To a world I’ll never see, to a world I still hope is pretty enough to deserve her.
‘I remember the song,’ I say suddenly into the vacuum. (I must have dozed off again.) ‘Was it this one?’ and begin to hum.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, that’s it,’ and her eyes re-light with sparkles as big as diamonds. This is what I want. Just a moment in the here and now. Where she doesn’t worry about the future. Where I don’t ruminate about the past.
‘What is it?’ she asks. ‘What are the words?’
‘Oh. Only an old wartime ditty,’ I tell. ‘Nothing too special.’
‘Please Granny,’ she pleads. ‘Can you remember the words? Can you? Just today. Just because of today.’
I begin to hum again, and suddenly, here and now, the words start to come. Slowly. Crackly. Scratchy. My voice as old as a gramophone recording itself. ‘Bing Crosby,’ I say. ‘He sang this a long time ago.’
The others are watching. They’ve all come in to watch, various tasks temporarily suspended, frozen. Just for a moment. Just for, of, and in this moment. Sandy wiping floury hands on the apron around her waist, Molly caught on the stairs with a book, my own Jenna come in from the garden with fresh-picked snow peas, Mario clearing away clutter from the table, Shelly about to walk the dog. They’ve all stopped what they’re doing to observe this frozen moment. This time capsule. Of an elderly white-haired woman and a clear-skinned bright-eyed child. Sharing a memory made.
I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through …
I’ll find you in the mornin’ sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you
References and Citations
For the reader intrigued to view the canvases from which I drew inspiration for this suite of stories, there are many opportunities to do so on the Internet. One need only ‘google’ Hopper’s name and the title of the painting (which I have listed at the head of each fiction) to be presented with a raft of websites offering such information. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, I am unable to include the actual images in the collection itself. However, as a start on your own journey into the heart of Hopper’s worlds, may I recommend either of the following sites which hosts many of the works cited: https://www.edwardhopper.net or https://www.wikiart.org/en/edward-hopper. Cover image: Hopper at his easel, cropped from a photograph by Reginald Marsh, undated (sourced from: https://www.artistandstudio.tumblr.com, a non-commercial, not-for-profit site), which I have reproduced as a low-resolution cover image for illustrative purposes only in a non-commercial, not-for-profit literary work – thus satisfying the requirements for fair use which neither competes nor conflicts with the copyright holder’s use of the original material.
References – Introducing Mr Hopper
Anfam, D 2004, ‘Rothko’s Hopper: A Strange Wholeness’, in S Wagstaff (ed.), Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
De Botton, A 2003, The Art of Travel, Penguin, London.
Deleuze, G & Boundas, CV 1993, The Deleuze Reader, Columbia University Press, New York.
Eliot, TS 1944, Four Quartets, Faber&Faber, London.
Emerson, RW 2003, ‘Fate’, in RW Emerson, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol.vi, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp.1-27.
Hopper, E 2004, ‘Interviews – 1933, 1939, 1956’, in S Wagstaff (ed.), Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
Iversen, M 2004, ‘Hopper’s Melancholic Gaze’, in S Wagstaff (ed.), Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
Krell, DF & Bates, DL 1997, The Good European: Nietzsche’s Work Sites in Word and Image, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Levin, G 2000, Silent Places – a tribute to Edward Hopper, Universe, New York.
Long, R 2005, ‘Richard Long: Walking into Existence’, in du 756, No. 4, die Zeitschrift für Kultur, Zurich.
Mendes, S 2002, ‘Interview’, in S Wagstaff (ed.) 2004, Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
O’Doherty, B 2004, ‘Hopper’s Look’, in S Wagstaff (ed.), Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
Rothko, M 1958, ‘Interview’, in S Wagstaff (ed.), Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
Updike, J 1995, ‘Hopper’s Polluted Silence’, in The New York Review of Books, August 10, Times Publishing, New York.
Wagstaff, S 2004, ‘The Elation of Sunlight’, in S Wagstaff (ed.), Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
Wightman, I 2005, ‘Prehistory and the Sculpture of Richard Long’, in du 756, No. 4, die Zeitschrift für Kultur, Zurich.
Wollen, P 2004, ‘Two or Three Things I Know About Edward Hopper’, in S Wagstaff (ed.), Edward Hopper, Tate Publishing, London.
Woolf, V 1985, Moments of Being, Harcourt, New York.
Citations – Song Lyrics
Easy Come Easy Go, 1967, performed by Elvis Presley, written by Sid Wayne & Ben Wiesman.
Lady Luck Blues, 1923, performed by Bessie Smith, written by Weber & Williams
All Alone, 1924, performed by Al Jolson, written by Irving Berlin
Singin’ in the Rain, 1929, performed by Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike), written by Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown
Brother Can You Spare a Dime, 1931, performed by Bing Crosby, written by Yip Harburg & Jay Gorney
I Love to Tell the Story (Hymn 969), The Salvation Army Songbook (American Supp.), written by Katherine Hankey (1834-1911)
The Legend of Margery Grey, traditional (19thc), written by Julia Dorr
Blue Skies, 1927, performed by Ben Selvin, written by Irving Berlin
Over The Rainbow, 1939m
performed by Judy Garland, written by Harold Arlen & Yip Harburg
Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee, 1932, performed by Fred Waring & his Pennsylvanians, written by Irving Berlin
Rosie the Riveter, 1942, performed by the 4 Vagabonds, written by Redd Evans & John Jacob Loeb
Summertime, 1935, performed by Abbie Mitchell (in Porgy & Bess), written by George & Ira Gershwin
I’ll Be Seeing You, 1938, performed by Bing Crosby, written by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal
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