I have recently returned from the wilds of Colorado, where I have been baby-sitting grandchildren, cooking fish-sticks and chicken nuggets.
I have watched both the ‘Angrybirds’ and ‘Minions’ movies and I’ve also become quite an expert critic of Disney shows featuring pubescent, obnoxious, bratty kids with loud mouths wearing too much make-up.
I’ve remembered that little kids giggle when they say the word ‘fart’ and that to the under tens, words including butt, poopy and other waste products or waste product producing body parts are also hilarious and are spoken when being ‘daring’.
I have mastered the use of texting, while serving as both of my grandchildren’s administrative assistant to put play dates onto calendars, advise other parents of their child’s arrival/departure and gazed in astonishment at the basic life of said lucky children.
I have fed crickets to a lizard in a tank in a boy’s bedroom…..
I have envied a ten year old’s wardrobe, and felt a bit like the wicked witch in Hansel & Gretel while picking up the grandkids at their school, comparing my appearance to all the lovely mums waiting to pick up their own kids. But was not run off by security as a potential baglady/kidnapper.
I have had breathing & lung envy as I watch everyone else skip, jump and hop, while also engaging in a conversation – whereas I have a near stroke just going up a flight of stairs due to the altitude.
I have felt shame because everyone knows how to ski (even babies, dogs and old people) and I have a phobia of hurtling down the mountain at break-neck speed. I’ve had too much dental work, and I would be the person to find the only tree on the side of the mountain and try to eat it.
I have also realized how VERY unhealthy my diet is compared to all these lovely people with their organic food and hummus. I have been so surprised how few of them use pot, which is now legal where they live, but impressed with the amounts of wine that they are able to consume.
It is refreshing to meet people who do not schedule their daily lives around laundry, housework and various housewifely duties, those duties that my generation does automatically before a pleasurable act, so that we can live without guilt. What a waste of all that time!
I have loved that all these well-educated, professional, career minded folk are still very liberal in their open-minded approach to life, that they are all sure they will NOT go to hell even though they drink.
I love that none of them want to shove their religious beliefs down my throat, and indeed fail to show any interest in me, other than genuine curiosity about who I am and where I am from – my political and religious beliefs (or lack thereof) hold no interest to these folk. What a NICE change!
It has been a lovely time spent there – I have enjoyed taking the kids unhealthy candy bars when I picked them up from school each day.
I thought it funny that strangers in the shops loved my messy grey hair that is worn too long for a 56 year-old woman. I loved that they thought me Bohemian, when I thought the same thing of them.
It has been so cool driving to buy groceries with the backdrop of mountains behind me, and it was VERY cool when I pulled off the road to watch a huge coyote trying to drag a dead deer carcass from the center median into the grass (see picture), and also fend off the magpies who were trying to get a snack first. It was also wonderful to watch deer walk casually down the streets, stopping to munch on the occasional tree blossom and not bat a long eyelash when you walked by.
It was also strange to hear my grandchildren speak of me as though I was a village elder, that I was very old (their words) and incapable of some physical tasks due to my vast age. It was good however, to convince these same children of my magical powers and extra senses, to talk about magic things that may (or may not) have happened.
It was neat hearing them speak of my country, England, and to give me their impressions of that accent which always included the word ‘tea’. It was interesting to answer some of their questions about that land.
But in my secret Nana brain, it was very, very cool to look at their happy and smiling faces, and know that I was the immigrant who moved here all those years ago, and that they are the first-born generation of my family’s American Branch.
One day, they will have their own grandchildren sitting on their laps, and perhaps they will tell their grandchildren stories about their English heritage and the odd, scruffy, magic, candy-giving woman that was their Nana.
Grandkids are really cool………
Jude