Poshdeluxe

so i finished my douglas coupland book yesterday and decided to post
two of my favorite excerpts (in the grand tradition of my xanga, which
is full of snippets of his works).

then my grandmother passed away this morning.

i read over the excerpts again, and they hit me even harder in light of her death.

the first is typical coupland, darkness tinged with humor:

“life is a bowl of chainsaws.”

i may feel that way sometimes but, really, i believe in this next one–
so much so that powder blue will spend her whole life searching for
this power (but knowing it’s not hers to possess):

“ok, i know– my superpower– i’d be able to shoot lightning bolts out
from my finger tips– great big Knowledge Network documentary bolts–
and when a person was zapped by one of these bolts, they’d fall down on
their knees and once on their knees, they’d be underwater, in this
place i saw once off the east coast of the bahamas, a place where a
billion electric blue fish swam up to me and made me a part of their
school– then they’d be up in the air, up in manhattan, above the world
trade center, with a flock of pigeons, flying amid the skyscrapers, and
then– and then what? and then they’d go blind, and then they’d be
taken away– they’d feel homesick– more homesick than they’d felt
their entire life– so homesick they were almost throwing up– and
they’d be abandoned, i don’t know… in the middle of a harvested corn
field in missouri. and then they’d be able to see again, and from the
edges of the field people would appear– everybody they’d known– and
they’d be carrying black forest cakes and burning tiki lamps and boom
boxes playing the same song, and the sky would turn into a sunset, the
way it does in walt disney world brochures, and the person i zapped
would never be alone or isolated again.”

i think of nana’s journey away from this earth much like she was hit by
one of those bolts. i picture her as she’s whisked away from the dark
loneliness of her paralyzed body and gently, swiftly, returned to her
home, the shores of bangor in northern ireland, with a ring of friends
and family drawing closer around her and singing and laughing and
celebrating her arrival. i can just see the smile on her face and the
dancing light in her eyes.

she’s home.