This is a short post today about a short person, the shortcomings of a particular government’s policies, a short-circuited travel plan, and finally, the benefits of refusing to be short-sighted or to feel short-changed.
The long and the short of it: For the past 26 months my three-year-old granddaughter, M, has known me only by my face on an iPad. When I left Japan (where my son and his family live) after my last visit in 2019, I planned to return, as usual, in a few months. That, of course, became impossible, and continues to be, because Japan has closed its borders to tourists and offers no indication of when it might reopen them. It’s a shitshow for people like me with families there, and for students and others who’ve had to juggle job prospects.
During this prolonged period of being unable to see my family in person, I’ve felt more acutely the intriguing relationship between sorrow and gratitude. In my current situation, there’s far more gratitude to be had, thanks to technology and to my adored and devoted son and daughter-in-law, who call me on Facetime or Zoom religiously. M is usually happy to have a visit. Sometimes it’s only for a minute on weekdays before she’s off to daycare; on weekends, we have an hour or two of occasionally intense iPad interplay.
But as I said, M sees only my talking head, propped up on her breakfast table or perched on a shelf when she’s in the bathroom and feeling chatty.
Often, on a weekend morning, she’ll tuck me under her arm and carry me into “ghost world”—her parents’ closet—where I pretend to be frightened and beg her not to leave me there alone. Chances are she will, as, like most distractible three-year-olds, she is prone to run off for a sidetracking errand. “Don’t go anywhere,” she admonishes as she scrambles out of the closet, quickly forgetting (or not caring) that Grammie is still there, staring up through a dense forest of hanging clothes at the north star of a bare bulb. “Hey, where’s Grammie?” I hear my son or daughter-in-law ask, minutes before I’m rescued.
At times like this I am the Velveteen Grammie. How I long to be real!
My point is that there have been moments so delightful with M that, in spite of the prohibitive restrictions, I am, in fact, more happy than sad. But I’ve had to practice the shift from feeling the I-have-to struggle (“I have to put up with being a face on an iPad because I can’t visit my family”) to I-get-to acceptance (“I get to talk with my granddaughter a lot even though I can’t visit my family”), finding the intention to turn what sometimes feels like a sorrowful situation into one for which I feel intensely grateful.
Here’s a wish for the new year: That we can choose to love intentionally, even extravagantly, and (hardest of all) unconditionally. To love, in this way, all the people around us. And that face you see in the mirror, too.
This just in…
I was recently asked to respond to the Oldster Magazine questionnaire, which was, like Oldster Magazine, thought-provoking and fun. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed answering it.
Awards Season preview
HNTFUYF won an Honorable Mention in The Spread Awards (aka the Spreadies). Read (and subscribe to!) former Elle magazine editors Rachel Baker and Maggie Bullock’s terrifically engaging newsletter, The Spread, where they deliver “…each week, a fresh batch of smart, funny, weird, deeply reported, knock-your-socks-off…stories” for, by, or about women. As for our tip of the hat: We humbly thank our mother and everyone we ever met.
For New Year’s Eve movie fans
Scrolling aimlessly on HBOMax as I mourned the season’s end of Succession, I stumbled upon Fanny and Alexander—a movie about families and their short people that is as big-hearted and visually sumptuous as any turn-of-the-century, upper-class Swedish Christmas. The movie is long…but then again, so is New Year’s Eve. Bring popcorn and schnapps.
Val Asks You
Don’t be shy! What’s your most vexing or intractable appearance issue? Send your beauty-related questions to valeriemonroe@substack.com. If I don’t have a good answer, I’ll find someone who does.
How I love this. Thank you for the delightful descriptions of being the iPad talking head abandoned in the closet (hilarious) and the reminder that gratitude is just one small, shift in focus away. Hugs!
so charming! thank you, V.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she admonishes as she scrambles out of the closet, quickly forgetting (or not caring) that Grammie is still there, staring up through a dense forest of hanging clothes at the north star of a bare bulb. “Hey, where’s Grammie?” I hear my son or daughter-in-law ask, minutes before I’m rescued.
At times like this I am the Velveteen Grammie. How I long to be real!