Contemporaries Swinging in the Netherworld

One morning my daughter woke up and proclaimed:
“I dreamed Gigi was on a swing:
the old-fashioned kind
such as they had back-in-the-days;
She beckoned to me to join her.”

If time is fluid,
and boundaries are wiggly
then people can vault generations.

I am my mother
– the daughter, not the granddaughter.

As my Grandmother goes forward,
she actually goes backward,
so I speed forward,
like the intersection of the “down” and “up” escalators at Sears.

Soon, I am a sister-in-law.
(I can’t be a sister; she didn’t have any.)
My Uncle and I carry on discussions of domestic and financial affairs
as a married couple.
He has become her favorite brother, Julius,
so I must be Florence.

She’s asking after her mother now,
so it won’t be long before I vault another generation,
just like another floor on the escalator,
and become the Mother.
After all, isn’t that full circle?
You change my diapers and feed me my mush,
and I do likewise for you.

So it seems natural
that my daughter and she should be friends:
contemporaries, swinging in the netherworld.



© 8/15/01
Elizabeth Lorris Ritter