Despertar

this fragile existence

My eighty-five-year-old paternal grandmother was hospitalized in Detroit last night for a blood pressure spike. She's fine now.

I called to check on her this morning at the urging of a seven-a.m. text message from my cousin. Grandma was in good spirits, babbling away about how she only has to stay hospitalized through this Wednesday, how nice it is to have BlueCross take care of everything, how--now that she's feeling better--the hospital stay feels like a relaxing vacation getaway. She has a fantastic, indefatigable attitude about stuff like this. She always sounds happy, even when she's about to pass kidney stones or something. She talks a lot. A lot, a lot. She'll ask a question--"So, are you enjoying, uh, what is it, California? You're in California, right, baby?"--then start supplying answers before I have the chance to open my mouth--"California, oh, it's so pretty out there. I remember when I was nursing for Miss Anna Mobley in North Carolina, she took me out to California..."

Whenever I'm about to call my grandmother in the presence of my dad, he always warns me about how talkative she is and how I shouldn't let that turn me off. He says, "Now, your grandmother likes to talk, but you can't let her dominate the conversation. You should just jump in there with updates about what you're doing, because she really does want to hear about you, she's just used to doing most of the talking herself. I'm telling you, she's going to try to keep talking, but you're just gonna have to jump in there. Sometimes, with people who talk a lot, you eventually just have to just cut them off--it may seem rude, but it's really not, you sometimes have to do that to get a word in edgewise without letting them dominate the conver--"

"Okay, Dad!" I always say, at this point. "I'm gonna go call her now."

*

Justin says, "You talk a lot." He says this inoffensively but frequently, as though it's just understood to be fact. Which I guess it is. I like to talk. I like the way words feel and sound in my mouth. One of my favorite things about talking (and writing) is the way a series feels, like a discrete collection of marbles or jewels or something, with all different colors and textures. Who are your favorite poets? I like Nikki Giovanni (brown), Pablo Neruda (cobalt blue) and Billy Collins (gray). Which artists are you including on that playlist? Two songs by The Roots (scratchy), some Nya Jade (smooth, cold face of a stone fresh out of the tumbler), that Marvin Gaye song I can't stop listeing to (soft and pillowy) and some Backstreet Boys, for Tina (sticky, like candy).

All my friends know this. Most have commented on it, nicely, at some point. My mother takes issue with it, not specifically, but the idea of big talkers in general: "I think people who talk more than they listen are just shortchanging themselves, because if you're so in love with the sound of your own voice, how can you learn from anyone else?"

She has a point. I don't think I can help it, though. It's in my blood.

*

My grandmother isn't getting any younger, and she's spending more and more time in the hospital. Her sunny attitude notwithstanding, she is completely fragile now, completely dependent on the arm's-length accessibility of the buzzer that calls for her nurse. Any episode could mean the end of her.

Or could it? My dad, a fifty-three-year-old man, channels her every time he revs up and starts to talk endlessly about something that's only of interest to him. I, at twenty-three, can see my friends' eyes glazing over when I get really psyched and can't shut up about something.

Maybe that's the strongest (and most narcissistic) argument in favor of procreation: insurance. With two backup descendants already displaying her most essential trait, my grandmother is anything but fragile. She'll be here forever, answering her own questions, boring the world to death for generations.