all politeness, digital collage, 2022
my grandmother sleeps in curlers almost every night & styles her hair every day. my grandmother loves cats—I get that from her—& jesus—which I didn’t. my grandmother collects clocks that play sounds on the hour, & she sets them to different times so she can hear each one’s unique music.
her father took her out of school in third grade because he felt it wasn’t worth it to educate a girl—she was just going to get married anyway. she helped to take care of her siblings instead, telling me about how her mother made them dandelion soup when they were too poor on a coal miner’s wage to afford groceries. my grandmother got married at twenty & had four children in as many years. when her husband decided to move across the country she packed up her life & left her family behind. she never went back. she never worked outside the home. she never learned to drive. she would give her mail-in ballot to her husband & sign it after he’d picked all the things for her to vote for. in the months & years leading up to his death of congestive heart failure, my grandfather never told her where their bank accounts were, which bills needed to be paid, or even where he kept the checkbook. he never put her name on the cable account or the phone bill. she never bought anything without asking him for permission first. she had a cash allowance she would spend at goodwill or the dollar store. she never had a credit card or a bank account in her own name. she never owned anything that was hers alone.
she once told me it was ok that she had been taken out of school because she was stupid anyway, it would have been a waste for her to continue.