It would have been the mid-Seventies, but I can’t pin it down much more closely than that. I was at our family’s ancestral farm in Piqua, Kentucky with my siblings, and somehow we found ourselves alone with Grandma Robinson, in a narrow strip of yard right next to the house.
A few words about my grandmother before I share this: she was, in general, warm to us all, and was a wonderful caregiver; she fixed delicious country meals and made certain we got enough sleep and wasn’t overly harsh (though we were aware from an early age of a brittle bush in the backyard from which she would break off a “switch”, with which she would administer whuppings if anyone acted up).
As far as I know, she never had any job other than homemaker, and we can infer that she was the soul of patience, given her years of marriage to our grandfather and the endless ornery conflicts among her children.
Her life was very traditional. She kept to her Woman’s Place, as Grandpa was head of the household, and her role in the tiny Piqua church was all Sunday School and potluck. She embraced ritual, prayers at the proper moment in particular, and was big on bible reading.
But there was more to her, I learned on this long-ago summer day.
What were we doing with her outside? She didn’t tell us ahead of time; she just led us to a spot where people coming in and out of the back door of the house wouldn’t see us, reached into the pocket of her apron, and pulled out... a harmonica.
Without preamble, she lifted it to her mouth and brought forth a tune.
This was utterly surprising to us. In a million years, I’d never have guessed she played the harmonica. We knew she was musical – the entire clan is piano-capable, because of her – but the harmonica?
She reached the end of the tune and we applauded, delighted.
She played another, and we loved that one, too, and then she said we’d better get back inside.
I thought about this moment again and again. It was puzzling; why didn’t she just pull out the harmonica and play for us in the living room? Or at the dining room table? Why take us outside where no one else would hear?
I don’t remember precisely, but my grandfather and one or both of my parents would have been in the house. It follows that she wanted only us kids to hear her, not any of the other adults.
When no one was visiting the farm, it was just her and my grandfather, and he spent most of his time out on the farm itself – so she would have had endless hours of alone time during which to practice the harmonica. And practice, she certainly had – she was quite good! So it’s easy to see how acquiring this skill could have been a secretive thing.
But why didn’t she want the others to hear? My dad would have loved it, without question, and my mom strongly encouraged musical exploration in us kids, so she surely would have been approving. Was it Grandpa? Would he have been annoyed?
Both of my grandparents are gone now, so I suppose I’ll never know. What I’m certain of is that my grandmother grew up in both a time and a place that bound her to roles that forced her to live as less than she really was, as my mom had; Fundamentalism is ruthless in confining women to station and behavior that men dictate. What could the women of our clan have achieved, if they’d grown up free of those constraints?
I’ll never know, and I’ll never fully understand, I feel certain; but I do know that on that summer afternoon, in that secret moment, I saw my grandmother as I’d never seen her before, and never would again: she was someone with music inside her that she was determined to find, and ultimately share.
I wonder how much more there might have been within her that never made it out.
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