CrushedPills | Teen Ink

CrushedPills MAG

January 13, 2016
By emmmaa SILVER, Arlington Heights, Illinois
emmmaa SILVER, Arlington Heights, Illinois
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves."


I was sitting at my cluttered desk, trying not to think about my Nonno. Unfinished sketches and charcoal pencils sprawl across the floor and desktop. Angry eyes, pleated dresses, etched bottles...they're all trying to swim to the top to get a glimpse of the flickering lamp light. My hand is off into its own world, mindlessly constructing smooth strokes to make out the round features of a face. I focus on the details. The little wrinkles on the lips and under dark eye circles highlighting the cupids bow to contrast with shading under the jutting bottom lip, stray strands of hair to frame around temples and ears. Movements as easy as sweet breeze brushing closed eyelids and feathering through flowing locks of hair. Always smooth, like fingers feeling for bare fingernails to lace hands together. 


But drawing—it's more like collecting passing faces or colors from strewn candy wrappers along the curb and stringing them together into one face, one scenery, one rose study.  Your dreams recreate faces for a reason. A day at the forest preserve will do it for me. Driving through the winding gravel path nestled under a blanket of soft pressed leaves, we watch falling amber drift down to graze our windshield and dance to the floor. I crouch next to an old oak, snapping pictures of dew trailing through the maze of bark ridges and streaming off curled leaves. I save this for later. I'll recreate it. And sometimes I wish that everyone can remember simple experiences like these. Sights that can't be retold in abstract detail but need to be felt. Actually, forget the little experiences.  Everyone should be able to put a name to a known face.

 

We've wound up at my Nonna's ranch settled in between patient houses in a cul-de-sac. I'm crouched next to the sea of tomato plants lined in rows of five. My sister is weaving through leaves reaching to brush her arm. She picks off each sun kissed tomato peeking from the green blanket. She picks a speckled one and rubs it in between her daisy blouse to clean it. I know that impatience, wanting to taste the sweet summer sun in a single bite. It brings me back to Sundays. I look over at her collection of jumbled tomatoes in the fold she made with the bottom of her shirt. Mom calls us in for dinner. Grace runs through the gate to the side screen door. I watch stragglers jump out of her fold and bounce on the pavement.


I stay sitting a while and imagine walking through that door and up the three linoleum steps into the kitchen. Nonno will be sitting in his smooth black wheelchair wearing his Borsalino hat with glasses that double his eye size. I will approach him to say hello. His green eyes will jerk across my face. They'll be glazed over like the polished vase holding the wilted tulip petals from this morning. I can see myself staring back. My eyes will drop to my feet. From the house, Mom calls me in for dinner a second time, and I get up and go. 


We sit down at the round oval table for dinner. It's only supposed to sit four people, but my Nonna loved that table and refused to use the new one we moved up from her basement. So we manage. It's cluttered with bowls of elbow pasta and homemade sauce, grilled cauliflower, and Italian sausage. I know she spent that morning shaping breadcrumbs into her meatless "meatballs" for me because she knows I don't eat meat.


"Mariana, chi e questo?" He's asking who I am. He looks over from studying my face and pleads with his eyes for an answer.
"It's Emma, Papa," my dad answers, tapping his hands to emphasize my name while steam from the bowl in front of him swirls around his chin.  His voice sounds like a deflating balloon.  I focus on the wine bottle sitting across from me. It's beautiful. The crystal cross-pattern gleams under the ceiling light. I can make out the little dip of the deep wine where it fills to.

 

I remember going down into the cellar with Nonno when I was little. I was amazed at the three wooden barrels that were positioned on their side. Each had a little silver spout dirtied with dried sticky wine and with empty Barilla jars catching the drippage. He would boom about how he made it all himself as he kneeled down next to the second barrel to fill his bottle. Deep hues of ruby and garnet would flow…

 

Nonno shook my hand and patted me on the shoulder with his soft wrinkled hand. You could see the veins running up to his fingertips and circling back to his elbows.  Today was a bad day; his memory was fogged. Some days he would tell stories about Italy and all of his kids. Other days, he couldn’t write his name or get himself out of bed or couldn’t walk with the strong legs that have carried him miles.


I look over at my sister spooning her face with elbow pasta. She asks for extra sauce every time, a whole ladle more. Sometimes she even licks her bowl despite my mom's scowl. The secret is the little bit of sugar added into each jar. It's perfect, actually, balancing the bitter tomato taste with sweetness. I would lick the bowl if I was her, too.

We finish up and my dad's wheeling my Nonno to his bed. He gets tired after he takes his six  medications we have to crush and mix with Jell-O pudding for dessert. He doesn't eat it otherwise. I stay behind with my mom to help wash the dishes.


I open my mouth and hesitate. "You know, it just makes me sad."


She turns her face. "What?"


"I don't know. Seeing him like that. I don't know."


My mom stays concentrated on scrubbing dried sauce off the wooden spoon. "That's not something you need to worry about. You have such a long time ahead of you. Lighten up."


She knows I can't because I've always worried about every little thing that a kid shouldn't trouble with. I get it from my mom's mom. She always calls up about something she saw on the news about girls being kidnapped and killed or doing drugs and then acts like we don't know about it already. The news is a horrible thing. She's full of nerves, always quietly tapping her knuckles down on the table when she's thinking. I start drying the dishes, but the rags just spread the water around on the clean plates.

 

My father is a contained man. A man who makes corny adult jokes and asks for high fives when he's done. He is funny, though. I have to admit it. I just like to give him a hard time by holding in my laughter and giving him a cold stare. He's a man who doesn't get angry very easily, but when he does, it's just silence. Silence makes you think and silence makes you feel guilty. Breakfast is his go-to meal when my mom works late at the hospital. You can tell he's mad when his eyes get squinty and he stabs at his chocolate chip pancakes. "How can you guys sit down at the table and not say anything to each other." It's always more of a statement than a question. He doesn't get angry often, but when he does I get guilty as hell.


You can see it in his half smile and his voice. You can tell the worry is shaving him down like gritty sandpaper. I don't blame him. He's turning fifty and probably wonders how he'll turn out. He carries the high blood pressure, the narcolepsy and the Meniere's that made him fall one time and hit his head on the brass door handle of his bedroom. But he still has a while to go.

 

When I start a new piece of art, whatever it is, I get this excitement. Like I have to do this all right now. My hands long to pick up a pencil and to just make the scattered flashing ideas in my head something concrete before I forget. That feeling is what gets me through hours of creating, but if it fades, I just stop.


That's when erasing comes in. Grabbing the soft grayed rubber that feels like velvet and is streaked with smudged pencil marks. I only like to use one side at a time, rounding the sharp corners into something imperfect. I usually get about halfway through one before I lose it or accidentally toss it into a pile of balled sketches.


I start rubbing away at the marks. It erases the surface and most of the dullness but leaves behind imprints. You can trace them with your index finger to recreate it with your senses like brail. The page is tainted, ruined, impure. It takes away what can be seen, but leaves behind ideas and eagerness. It leaves behind emotions, things only someone can see if they get too close to hear your heartbeat or feel your warm breath. They're scars. I put the eraser down into the pile of rolled, dark shavings. Dark curls that get brushed off onto the dirtied carpet. Dark like when I'm drawing and dark like the night sky.


I'm sure we all have a fear of dying. I think about it a lot. I think about how life will be different if my Nonno passes anytime soon. I imagine him leaving behind my grandma.  I picture her going into the room they shared and into the closest under the hanging gold cornuto. She insists on hanging them in corners of her house to protect against the evil eyes of others wishing bad luck upon her family. I have one above my front door. I picture her slowly pulling the wooden paneled doors apart and stands back. His Borsalino hats, five of them, line on the top shelf dirtied with dust. His tan windbreaker hangs next to his blue worn flannel. I watch her contemplating what to do, what to think. Anger whispering to burn all of it with kerosene in the crumbling firepit in the back, blaming him for leaving her.  Sympathy holding her shoulder steady cooning her to save all his jackets and button-ups in a used FedEx box to give out to grandkids along with stories. Sorrow soothing her and telling her to keep them to remember the smell. The choice to simply swipe a life from existence...

 

I put down my pencil down, blow the eraser shavings off my sketch pad, and watch them fall to my floor like powder left from crushed medication.


The author's comments:

My Nonno's dimensia has had such a big impact on my family and I. I felt like sharing


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.