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2004-04-27 My grandparents have parted ways. Living apart in hospitals that stand next to each other. Everyone sorting things out at the old farm. Adding a curtain in a room that didn't used to have a bed. Going through stacks of mail. Pushing rusted freezers out of the barn. A museum of bicycles hung upside down, rusted to their hooks. Broken depression plates from afternoon movies. They salvage old percolators, silver spoons. My dad hands me a "Miss Kiwanis" banner. Rue wants to buy the farm. For projects and long walks over the hillside. 80 acres for things like bee-keeping and a warehouse. He imagines a field of solar panels. Maybe windmills. I think of breeding labrador pups. Of growing sunflower mazes every summer. A large garden. My own workshop. We wonder sometimes what all this education is for. |