In the late 90’s, I lived at my grandparents’ house for six or seven months. It was wonderful – I’d never really grokked them before then, not really. But living with them as an adult showed me that they weren’t unemotional but subtle, they weren’t grouchy but outspoken, they weren’t scary but fun.

I learned a lot about myself and my family during that time. It gave me perspective; I hadn’t sprung whole from the ether. I was the product and result of a family in addition to being what I’d made of myself. A lot of my faults and strengths came out of my genotype… and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I developed opinions I wouldn’t have had otherwise. For instance, I realized that I myself value a certain amount of emotional privacy and I don’t really think people need to spend untold hours in therapy delving through every single time they’d ever had their feelings hurt. I learned that I felt this way after my own mom came to the Hall’s house for a weekend, and left early on Sunday. When I asked her why she and her husband weren’t staying for dinner, she told me that she didn’t feel comfortable in her own mother’s house, that she felt her parents were both intolerant of emotionality and quite controlling.

I think that’s the day I realized that my mother had a relationship with her mother exactly the same way I had a relationship with my mother. It seems obvious, but I’d never really understood that before – I remembered childhood with my mom’s probably slightly synthetic rapture about “going to the grandparents’ for Christmas! Aren’t you excited?”. My mother had her own opinions and feelings about her mom! Wow.

I didn’t find my grandparents emotionally stand-offish at all. I found them to be incredibly open, but subtle. They got their love across, but they didn’t have to slap you over the head to make you feel loved. They got their opinions across, but they didn’t have to call you a dumb jerk to your face to do so. A raised eyebrow, a side joke, a special verbal cadence – all the information was there, but not grossly so. I thought they were totally awesome, and I saw a lot of myself in them. More, I thought at the time, than I saw in my own parents.

My grandma showed me photo albums and family heirlooms. She told me family stories. She shared her thoughts and opinions with me. She shared recipes and household tips. Watching her and grandpa faux-argue over the morning newspaper showed me how married couples can holler and tease and enjoy one another if they want to. Watching them share tea bags at lunch showed me how to be frugal.

Here’s a list of things I learned during that time:

1. How to fold a mens’ t-shirt so that it’s a tidy little brick and fits nicely in drawer or on shelf.
2. Waste not, want not: I keep bags, rubber bands, twisty ties, and other ubiquitious items, and I always have one when someone needs one.
3. How to make cranberry cordial.
4. That a “snort” of whiskey every night at 5 o’clock is a wonderful delineation between day and evening, and is also a great time to gather together and share the events of the day.
5. A place for everything, and everything in its place: my grandmother has lived in the same house for fifty years. Her cupboards, closets, and pantry are a glory of organization.
6. To keep a container by the sink, with a produce bag in it, for wet waste like eggshells, the stuff from the sink, tea bags, and vegetable peelings, so that it can go into the compost and because it keeps your regular kitchen trash from smelling so bad.
7. That a large patch of catnip is worth leaving in your yard, for the laughter you get from watching the neighborhood toms come and get stoned.
8. There’s a difference between indulgence and spoiling.
9. No need to feel sorry for yourself.
10. It’s a woman’s perogative to keep ornaments and decorations for every season and every holiday she likes in her attic, and to change them on her own schedule.

I have no idea when grandparents’ day is, but I’m celebrating it today. I love my Grandma Hall very much, and I loved her husband, my Grandpa Hall, very much too. (Brett is so much like him that the entire family knew and loved him at once.) I wish I’d gotten a chance to know my father’s parents just as well but I didn’t. But I loved the hell out of both of them, too.