Today I awoke to sunshine and to feeling entirely more empowered and more optimistic. First I woke up to grandma calling for me, but after tending to her I fell back asleep and dreamt of a rhinoceros and of my favorite Indian restaurant in Houston. I awoke to the doorbell. My aunt, the last furrier in the city, apologized for waking me, but it was way past ten. She has a key now and can actually let herself in through the main door of the old house – a door that has never been in use for as long as I remember. It was my idea to open it, my idea for her to come and go as she pleased, to have a little workshop in the foyer to do her alterations. Later, as I got ready to go out, three aunts were sitting in the tiny room, sunshine spilling abundantly through the slanted windows, as they discussed a rabbit coat. I suddenly felt happy and at peace with the fact that they were there, that they were doing stuff, that a new portal had been created, a new access way into the old house and to the old ladies. Their ability to communicate with the outside world and with each other diminished, I figured the aunts’ physical access to them was vital. I wondered what the old house felt about all this. Had I disrupted the flow of energy by opening a door closed for over 50 years? Had I reversed or refreshed it? As the aunt belabored the rabbit jacket I felt happy that I had opened the old house to such activities.
In my own workshop, while the aunts all huddled in the tiny foyer, I painted the Mare de Deu de Montserrat, a tiny statue I bought back from Barcelona ten years ago. In some ways she feels out of place here. In other ways she definitely belongs.
