Granny's Games

Granny still lives! At least, as a "construct" she does. "Brain play" is the issue. We humans make things up and believe them, and then we give credence to their supposed significance and pray to them, pay obeisance, and even sacrifice our natures to their perceived wants. Is that not what the Greeks and Romans did? They took their beliefs very seriously! But now we study their gods, and even dare scoff at their ignorance, their fanciful-mess, their ignobility!

Yet...

Granny was spurned by me. We were across the country being driven from having a maple-pancake breakfast and still dreaming of securing this new place at Selleck Way when I dared, from the back-seat, scoff: "As if one's ancestors are leaning over one's shoulder and guiding you!" In that moment I was more-keen to support the existentialist driving the car than I was being sensitive to the supportive spirits hovering around my sensibilities. My old friend the driver conjoined: "Yes. A bunch of molecules and atoms; all dispersed and unidentifiable, that'll be me. End of story. All else is Brain-Play!" Still, at that moment in the car something dire enveloped me. It was a foreboding. Poised as we were on the precipice of a delicate financial negotiation to secure our desired new home, I'd proven sacrilegious. I'd denounced my Gran-(nee) Selleck! And what's more, the other persons in the car knew precisely what and whom I was talking about! Still, I doubt that any one of them felt what I felt. They perhaps gave it no more thought. But all the rest of that day, my betrayal of my Granny lingered in me.

'Selleck Way' had struck me as providential from the outset. The street with my Granny's maiden name on it had guided me toward my new abode! Surely it was a sign? (And more than just a signpost, ha!) Surely Granny Selleck, my dear long-departed 'Dorothy', was monitoring me, steering me to more-better choices, being an angel in my care! But did I care back? Did I offer her sufficient gratitude? Did I acknowledge her 'presence' and her guardianship in my life? Well, certainly I did by telling my closest ones of the coincidental name! Certainly I did by telling my wife, my brothers, my sister, just how pleased I was to be living, potentially, on Selleck Way.

And then the deal fell through. That same night of my having denounced Granny at breakfast, all of six months ago, the email came through from the Realtor. We'd lost the deal; the prospective buyers of our old place were not able to get their grand piano into it, and so their conditions were not met. And we were back to 'square one.'

Square one. It's as though life itself is a game. We negotiate and create contracts and pray that our needs will be met. We bargain and manipulate and orchestrate and manage. We are not the product of our own making (only); we are the product of chance and coincidence and influence and 'who one knows'. And that Granny was so linked to Selleck Way and that I'd mocked at her influence was the reason, I felt it somewhere in my bones, that I now had lost the opportunity to purchase my dream home! And on the aeroplane, the next day, going back across the country from our visit with our friends near that maple farm, I sent hopeful thoughts toward Granny. I sent little prayers of contrition, of apology, of regret. Somehow, I felt, I was in the wrong.

It took nearly six months before the reversal of our ways. With our old house at last again sold, we yet again bid on Selleck Way, and won! Yes, Granny has been very gratefully acknowledged along the way. Thing is, those same 'across the country' friends recently visited, and though his 'brain-play' became a Granny-Game about Much-Ado, it was our conversationally re-construing co-valent bonding that left its mark. Atoms conjoin. Ghosts hover. Angels abound. Throughout history spirits (and demons) and Left-and-Right and the intersection between them has plagued mankind. Been a heart-hurt? Yes. Yet manufactured Saints and Santas and Goblins and Fairies invest themselves. So too for all our gods galore. Brain play? Indeed!