"All That Glitters...."

She reaches into the stocky white fridge and smiles quickly at the camera before turning to reveal gold glitter gleaming from her short tank dress. She is tall and lean, and busy, in perpetual motion, surrounded by a sea of relatives whose names no one can recall.  The guests hold paper plates piled high with potato salad and Christmas Jello, their hair worn in waves, and their mouths move quickly, as if catching a train. They are down from the city, their clothes all stiff, smart, and proud.   But she is the center-piece, it’s her party, commandeering a jungle of noise and food in the ballooning suburbs of Jersey.

The camera jolts to reveal another disparate scene, a man fishing off a dock somewhere green and wooded. He smokes a chunky pipe, and a small dog lopes back and forth between him and someone with tired legs seated just out of view of the frame.  The man wears flannel and an enormous smile, the size of a northern Perch, a grin born of 1950s confidence, the war over and America on the rise.

As the camera jerks the viewer is taken out of the woods and into a warm home.  Scenes erupt onto the screen and flicker away as quickly as they appear.  An old woman in a metal chair. A carousel birthday cake in a pink bakery box.  Wrapping paper pin-wheeling it’s way across a wooden floor. Outside, lilac bushes are set against a gray sky. A generously proportioned woman rides a lawn mower.

He sent me this video as a gift from the past, and I watch it seated in a plush chair late at night, while the boy sleeps and the Engineer is out with a friend.  The black dog sits by my side, indifferent to these fruitless human exercises in nostalgia.  Bored, she sniffs the air and settles her old bones down onto the carpet, nothing to be chased or eaten here tonight. 

I grab the phone and dial his number. I hear my voice travel two thousand miles across the prairie, over the Mississippi and down into the earthy wetlands of Florida.

He picks up.

“I got your stupid package”, I tell him.

“Ya did? Oh good, honey”.  The racket of the ball game is heard in the background.

“No one should be able to watch old movies alone,” I caution.

“Tell me about it”, he counters. 

But I can see he’s distracted. I imagine him gripping a mug of hot chocolate, his eyes glued to Mariano Rivera on the wide screen, the team’s closer high up on the mound tonight.

"It's all about pitching," he concludes, unprompted, unrelated. 

I know what he means, but I choose the subtext instead. I carry this riddle with me into the night. 

Note: My post means little. I apologize. It's a belated Thanksgiving thank you in recognition of a good life, a kind of love letter to my spirited parents.