A Day with the Grandkids

 I was remembering back to the last day I spent with my grandkids this summer before we went back into isolation. It was a hot day and I suggested we walk to the park. My 8-year-old grand-daughter agreed it was hot and told me to go put on shorts before we went. I told her I didn't wear them and didn't own any, and she thought that was funny.

At the park, she decided to dig in the sandbox to the centre of the earth. And asked me to take a photo of it. I told her I didn't have a camera with me.

"Use your phone," she said.

"I don't have one."

"Oh."

A while later, I told them it was time to go back to the house, and she told me to phone her dad to see if it was time to leave yet.

"I don't have a phone."

"Oh."

I found it interesting how big a role a phone played in her day-to-day life. She just assumed it was a feature, a tool, always ready to hand. She couldn't grasp that not only was my phone not with me, I didn't even own one.

We started to walk back home, and she suggested we stop at the store for ice cream on the way.

"That would be fun, but I don't have my purse with me. I don't have any money on me."

She thought this over, and then said, "You don't spend money, do you?"

"No. I try not to if I don't have to."

And then she said something like, "You're different from the way it is at my house." And I had to laugh. Yep. A bit different. Grandma is a little bit out of step with the rest of the world, I think.

I like being able to cope without electronics and gadgets. I like kneading dough by hand and grinding my own spices with a mortar and pestle. I like reading by candlelight sometimes, and washing dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher. I like the feel of rolling pasta through the pasta machine and shelling peas and snapping green beans. I like the slow, contemplative threading of the loom and the soft click of knitting needles. I prefer sewing by hand instead of with my sewing machine, and all the towels I weave are hand-hemmed. I like writing with a pen and paper better than typing on a clacking keyboard. I keep my recipes on---gasp---recipe cards, handwritten, in little drawers.

Son #3 was listening the other day to the Andrews Sisters, and with a nostalgic sigh, he told me, "I was born in the wrong era."

Me too, sweetie. Me too.