Hydrangeas

Score one for Proust! Hydrangeas just crashed in on me.

As I was walking aimlessly on Sunday, the newly budding hydrangeas at my building were doing their thing on a dull, chilly Father's Day. Flowers hold a special place in the reconstructed narrative of my father, nurseryman. So that would include his mother, my Bubba, as well. While much of America was occupied with crisping meat on the grill, swelling the nation's collective tie rack and just taking a tiny moment for thanks, I was remembering the largest of my three grandmas.

Bubba lived about 15 miles from us in a quiet resort town, Fairport, Ohio. I have strong, iconic memories of the place for many good reasons. Some confusing ones as well. Mostly, Fairport had an instinctual childhood gravity for me, both weight and grounding. In the deep of a starving night, I see three images from my childhood: a set of tiny vacation cottages, huddled under snow; icy tree fingers clicking after a winter's freezing rain; and golden memories of fairport summers.

"Hydrangea" was far beyond me. "Snowballs" was the proper name for the giant, showy guys in front of bubba's porch. When I was tiny, I didn't know from flower names. Peonies appealed because they attracted so many ants. I liked that. The pink of the flowers provided a vivid backdrop for my industrious brethren. Ants were my tinier analogues, buggy dopplegangers for me, the boy fetus. By some sketchy association, I too was abnormally strong and to be feared, in spite of my size. When you're a kid, everyone's larger than you. But Bubba was a presence, overweight and big-boned.

Bubba's house too had a number of outsized features, large and round. There was the spectacular wall of rose vines along her straight shot driveway. The purple smoke tree in her side yard was one of the most mysterious things I'd ever seen. (My poor vision certainly played to the tree's strength and appeared even more nebulous than possible when in flower.) She always had Persian cats, fluffy beyond belief. It was hard to tell where the fur ended and the atmosphere began. I remember the name "Smoky."

How she lived contained seeming contradictions -etherial and earthy- but her tastes were not a surprise to anyone who knew her. She expected some types of excellence in her life, regardless of her circumstances. Bubba was an expansive soul and she was dirt plain too. For instance, her hounds were always named "Puddles," her stove always had the same few dishes simmering away, ready for ladling, and she was must have owned two, perhaps, two and a half, house dresses; her house had an indelible smell, changed only when overwhelmed by a new dish on the stove.

She never let complexity get the better of her. That could look like the limited response of a simple person. Not so from my reckoning. She understood that the reasonable thing to do was to apply what she had at hand, not lament what wasn't available to her. I don't think that she saw much value in trying to undo the pecking order of the universe. To my memory, her wry smile acknowledged the sad, unchanging joke of living. Laughter was always a sensible response to anything out of her reach.


Fairport memories abound for me. My near-blind Uncle Dave, the skeet-shooting champion. Aunt Marcha (still no clue on how to spell her name), who I thought was part horse. His son, David, the bully, least likely to succeed with a skull dented from one of Bubba's cast iron frying pans. One other memory of him: being horrified as he tried to nail the barnyard cats with darts. He's dead, suicide, just like his father. Aunt Susie, ripping the joint up with her accordion. Aunt Margie, her house on the beach; the Urbans; the lighthouse; the little store where we could get a treat. Most of all, I remember the crazy rhyme she'd do with us kids in some Slovak language. The key was the way she bounced our heads around in her giant hands in time to the rhyme. That was some fun. Bountiful memories.

I was desperate as a child to fit myself into this world. Honestly, I bet I was a pain more than anything. Didn't like David. Didn't like Bubba's food (when I was tiny). Felt too fragile for such a robust place. Never felt comfortable, but that didn't matter. I needed Bubba like food. As a teenager, I grew to such a likeness of my father, Bubba would cry every time she saw me. He died at the age of 33. Having his ghost around must have been bitter for her. Maybe I looked like him as a child too. Now I think that I look a cross between Bubba and dad.

The picture above was taken of the same bush, last year. I loved the two different colors, like some optical test. I can't say for sure that the plants at Bubba's were hydrangeas. Just too much little kid memory to be trusted. I remember a darker blue with white accents, large complicated balls. Doesn't matter much, the details of the door that you step through, does it?