Knocking Around Inside My Head: Weekend Write-In

Silly Oma 1984 (#wall)

Giulia set her coffee cup under her small wooden stool while sunning herself in the brightest corner of the patio and took a long drag off her cigarette before stubbing it out in a homemade ceramic ashtray.

"Gaggi!" she yelled across the lawn, "Let's go work on the dam. There isn't enough water in the pond."

Her granddaughter stepped out of the rowboat and finished wrapping the rope around a pole to secure it. "Ok, Oma." She ran up the grassy embankment wearing only her bathing suit and sneakers already soaked from playing in the boat for so long.

Giulia hoisted herself up using a wooden walking stick to support her hunched frame. When her granddaughter reached the patio, she used both hands to attempt to pull her back straighter. "You are almost as tall as I am," she said lifting her chin for extra height, "and not very useful as a walking stick anymore."

Her granddaughter laughed and squatted low so Giulia could use the top of her head as a cane again like when she was small and couldn't pronounce her own name properly. Her grandmother fancied the mispronounced version of her name and it had stuck. Together they walked around the small pond to the brook on the other side of the large yard.

"Start by getting that pile of boulders from the other bank and reinforcing that hole where the water is running through," said Giulia. She eased herself to the ground and slid on her bottom down the grassy bank to the brook. Her gangly granddaughter ran down the slope and waded easily through the water, only knee-high this time of year. One by one, Gaggi slipped and stumbled carrying the enormous rocks into the water. Giulia directed them into place adding smaller stones from the riverbed between them. Each time she picked one up she wobbled a little but remained undeterred.

"Have you ever knitted?" asked Gaggi while Giulia took a break and lit another cigarette. Gaggi inhaled the smoke that wafted past her deeply. She loved that smell.

"Only during World War II when they made us knit socks for soldiers in school," said Giulia smirking. "I HATED it."

Gaggi smiled, she knew her Oma a  wasn't a normal grandmother.  No pies, no rocking chairs, no knitting. Just coffee, cigarettes, camping, and adventures. "Can we get Chinese for dinner tonight?" she asked.

"Sounds good to me," replied Giulia. Cooking wasn't one of her fortes either. She watched fondly as her oldest granddaughter started to sweat in the Colorado midday sun dutifully building up the wall of rocks damming up the brook. It was understandable why her granddaughter had coined the name she would go by to friends, family, and even acquaintances for almost forty years. She wasn't just any oma. She was Silly Oma. Giulia extinguished her cigarette, stumbled out of the water and began crawling up the steep embankment on all fours, "Come," she said nodding to Gaggi to follow, "let's go cool off with a swim."