“Nana & Lucia, 2013” - Audio Transcript
Audio #1
Nana: “It’s kinda like you don’t know what other people are feeling, so you don’t want to be like…too serious or too silly…”
Lucia: “Mhm”
Nana: “…In case it hurts somebody else’s feelings…”
Lucia: “Yea”
Nana: “…But then all of a sudden, it’s just what it is.”
[Break]
Audio #2
Lucia: “Um, okay. Soooo… I was gonna ask you, so how do you feel right now?”
Nana: “How do I feel?”
Lucia: “Mhm”
Nana: “About Nonie? Or about, what? Anything?”
Lucia: “Mm about anything. Besides tired right now.” (Laughs)
Nana: (Laughs) “I don’t know, I feel pretty happy…”
Lucia: “Yea?”
Nana: “Yea. I have moments when I’m…reflecting, I guess…on Nonie because I’m…so much a part…of…everyday she was…you know, so I’ll be doing something and think ‘Oh gosh, I gotta give her a call, I haven’t heard from her.’”
Lucia: “Yea…”
Nana: “You know? And uh…but that’s not all sad, that’s just…you know…weird.”
Lucia: “Different.”
Nana: “And uh…” (Higher pitch in voice) “Outside of that, I’m pretty happy with things. You know?”
Lucia: “Now tell me how you really feel.”
Nana and Lucia: (Laughing)
(Overlapping voices)
Nana: (High pitched, mocking voice) “I’m pretty pissed at the world.”
Lucia: (Mocking voice) “I’m pretty happy. I’m just gonna twiddle my thumbs.”
Nana: (Laughing)
(Dog collar jingles in background)
Nana: (High pitched, mocking voice) “I’m kinda pissed at the whole world.” (Regular voice) “No…” (Chuckling)
[Break]
Audio #3
Lucia: “I was listening to Billy Joel today and, naturally, ‘River of Dreams’…is that what it is? ‘River of Dreams’?…”
Nana: “Yea.”
Lucia: “…came on. So I kinda got a little…sad. It’s weird, it’s like this…”
Nana: “It’s a melancholy sad though. I think.”
Lucia: “Yea. You know, it’s one of those things where…have you ever felt like you needed to cry?…”
Nana: “Oh yea!”
Lucia: “…But there’s a difference between needing to cry and feeling like you should cry. When that song came on, it was like a little of both. Because it was weird, I was like ‘I feel like I should be really sad right now?’ or I was like ‘Or maybe I should be happy because it’s a happy song? Or maybe I should…’ You know, I got a little teary at first and then I was like, ‘No, I like this song, it’s bouncy, it’s fun, and…’ But you know like throughout the whole song I was thinkin’ about her and…it’s weird, I think the initial thing, you’re just like ‘Oh my gosh…oh my gosh.” like and you… I mean I know like… I don’t know, you know, I’ve always was really like optimistic about…um…you know every year everyone would say, ‘Oh…make sure you give Nonie a hug and a kiss and tell her you love her…like…this could be her last holiday…’ and I remember hearing that for like years and years and I was like, ‘Guys, come on, don’t be so pessimistic…like…you know? She…she’s fine.’ You know? But then like in the back of my mind I was like, ‘What if I’m wrong? Like, what if…’ You know and it’s like, ‘one day…like ho…like holy crap…’ And then, but then I was like, “No, no don’t think about that it’s not gonna happen.’ But you know it’s going to…like it’s…”
Nana: “Well, yea… I mean it’s inevitable but…”
Lucia: “Mhm”
Nana: “If it’s in the future it doesn’t count.”
Lucia: “I know. (Wry chuckle) It’s weird though.”
Nana: “You know, it’s the same when Papa died. You know it’s like…well you know someday but…”
Lucia: (Clears throat)
Nana: “…certainly not today.”
Lucia: “Yea. You’re like, ‘It’s never going to be today. It’s never…”
Nana: “Yea, I know.”
[Break]
Audio #4
Nana: “And I still remember the smell of…the water would drip on the furnace…”
Lucia: “Mhm. And would it like…(makes sizzle noise)?”
Nana: “Yea, it’d sizzle, you know? And it just has a certain smell to it…I still…that still special smell.”
[Break]
Audio #5
Lucia: “It looks so much bigger when you’re, when you’re little.”
Nana: “Oh, I know!”
Lucia: “That whole house is so much bigger when you’re little. I can’t believe…when we went there…the one day when all of us were there…and we went in the back woods. We got there and were like, ‘This is it?’…”
Nana: (Laughs)
Lucia: “…’Where’s the rest of it?’ Like, it’s crazy.”
Nana: “Oh, when you were little, he took you back there to see the pumpkins and you guys thought you were in a forest, you know?”
Lucia: “Oh my gosh! Yea! I knew I was. I absolutely was. I think it was just hiding that day I went back there.”
[Break]
Audio #6
Nana: (Laughing)
Lucia: “I guess I write in journals though, so that… Maybe you should do that, maybe you should…”
Nana: “I write.”
Lucia: “Yea? Really?!”
Nana: “Mhm”
Lucia: “You don’t peg me as the writing type.”
Nana: “Oh yea…”
Lucia: (Wry laugh)
Nana: “I write all the time.”
Lucia: “Do you have like a nightly journal or something?”
Nana: “Papers…”
Lucia: “Just papers?…”
Nana: “…all over.”
Lucia: (Laughs) “So, a discombobulated journal.”
Nana: ”Yea…”
Lucia: “That’s cool though.”
Nana: “When the thought hits me, I write it.”
Lucia: “There you go.”
Nana: “And then I put it somewhere…and I go...”
Lucia: (Laughs)
Nana: “…’Where did I put that?’”
Lucia and Nana: (Laughing)
[Break]
Audio #7
Nana and Lucia: (Laughing)
Nana: “Oh yea, I’m terrible that way. You know? I’ll just, Sometimes I’ll be sleeping and I’ll wake up and I’ll go, (sigh) ‘Ah, I gotta write that down.’ I used to keep a tablet by my bed, but I found that to be totally useless.”
Lucia: (Coughs) “Really?”
Nana: “Did you ever write something down at night when you’re sleeping?”
Lucia: “Uhhhh, n-no? But I’ve…”
Nana: “It’s probably a good thing.”
Lucia: (Laughs)
Nana: “There’s nothing more frustrating in the whole world than to get up in the morning and go, ‘Oh, that’s right, I wrote it down.’ And you look at it and it looks like a two-year-old got let loose with a pen…”
Nana and Lucia: (Laughing)
Lucia: “That’s like…”
Nana: “DO DO DO DO DO DO DO!!!” (Laughing) “And it all runs together. And, and I can consciously remember thinking, ‘Okay, I wrote here, so I’ll go down a ways.’ Right?”
Lucia: “It’s like at the bottom of the page…”
Nana: “Yea! And still when you get up, it’s like all on top of each other!” (Laughing loudly) “And uh, so now what I do…is I keep paper in the kitchen, so I actually have to get up. And when you get up, you always have to go to the bathroom.”
Lucia: “Yea.”
Nana: “And, I figure, ‘Okay, now I’ll be awake enough to write it down. And still…”
Lucia: “You should keep a pad in the bathroom!”
Nana: “That might be a good idea.”
Lucia: “Right on top…just don’t knock it in the toilet.”
Nana: “But still… I cannot understand it in the morning.”
[Break]
Audio #8
(Laughing)
Lucia: “Um…but yea, if you have uh dreams, you should write those down too. Do you ever…”
Nana: “Oh, I… Oh my god, the last couple nights have been…that kind of dream. I call them my Monty Python Dreams.”
Lucia: (Laughing)
Nana: “Where you get something stupid here and here, just like what you’re talking about, and they have no connection and no match. You know? And nothing makes sense.”
Lucia: “Yea.”
[Break]
Audio #9
Lucia: “On a totally, not random topic, but speaking of…odd things happening… So, um, last year for my class, for my Contemporary Issues class, I was told that, we were told that we needed to go get uh our a reading with tarot cards. So, we did that. And, (clears throat) I actually just recently listened to it again, and something was very interesting and… (Nana clears throat)… When she told it to me at the time I was really confused? Because I didn’t really uh know why she said it, and I kind of was just like ‘Uh I don’t know…’ like going along with it. You know? But I didn’t know what it would relate to or whatever. What is was is that she was like, okay so I had told her that I was a photographer, or you know like I was going to school for photography. And she told me that, ‘You know, you just need to be careful because there is going to be a time where you’re going to take some pictures that people might not like…’ And…that…um, how did she word it? She was like, ‘And, in the long run it’s gonna be, like in the long-term, it’s gonna be a good thing, but at that moment, it’s going to be not that good, for whatever reason.” So, it was weird that I had chose to listen to it at the time that I did because it was just when I finished my project. You know, this past quarter, and it had a lot to do with you guys and Nonie and myself and everything. Well, Miss I Don’t Like To Have My Picture Taken… (Nana chuckles) Um, it made me think of you because…I was like ‘Oh my gosh, am I like…’ And she was like ‘You know, just be careful because you don’t want to offend anyone.’ And so, it made me think of you…which was weird that she was telling me that then and now I was kind of like ‘I wonder if this is something it had to do with…’ But, I was telling dad this early, that, I know you guys prolly all hate me for picking at this topic so much, and doing all this work like this work surround the family and me…”
Nana: “Oh, absolutely not!”
Lucia: (continues) “…and, and Nonie. And, I know it’s a sore wound that’s getting poked at. You know? I know you guys hated me taking pictures of Nonie and maybe like at the funeral…and like getting in your face…”
Nana: “No! No… It’s just…I think I look old in my pictures now…”
Lucia: (wry chuckle) “Nana, you’re beautiful.”
Nana: “And um…I, I don’t know anybody in the family that objected…”
Lucia: “I know I just…”
Nana: “…We all thought it was a beautiful thing.”
Lucia: “I really, I just really feel like I just really like just like need to, to do this. And I don’t really know why. It’s weird, so…”
Nana: “Well, I think…”
Lucia: “And, I’m kind of at a stage like nothing is going to stop me! (Nana laughs) Like I need to do this! No matter if my family hates me at the end of this project!…”
Nana: “No, we don’t hate you.”
Lucia: “…or during it or…”
Nana: “We all thought it was beautiful because I think the beauty part of it, it shows…real life. In a dignified manner. In a loving manner.”
Lucia: “Yea.”
Nana: “Um…I’ll give you an example of something that wasn’t. (Lucia clears throat) Years ago, my grandfather got uh alzheimer’s really bad. And my grandmother she still had to work part time. So, she would walk a mile everyday uptown. She did rug binding for one of the stores and she did cleaning and stuff. And she’d walk home and uh, so she was gone several hours. And my grandfather started doing things, well first he’d get the mail and hide it. That wasn’t quite so bad. Will, stop! Then…he got to where she got home some days and he would like put potatoes on to cook and it maybe 10 in the morning and this would be 4 in the afternoon, and of course, there was no water left in the pan and stuff.”
Lucia: “Mhm.”
Nana: “And then it got…you’ve never been to Kane [Pennsylvania], right?”
Lucia: “Mnhm.”
Nana: “Well they lived in West Kane, so it was like a mile from town, and everybody down there knew everyone.”
Lucia: (giggles)
Nana: “But he would leave the house, and we’re talking days like this, dead of winter, with his short sleeve on and go walking. And the neighbors would stop. ‘Albert, where ya going?’ ‘I gotta find Ma.’ ‘You’re gonna freeze.’ ‘Oh, I’ll be okay!’ Well, they’d bring him home.
Lucia: “Mhm.”
Nana: “So, eventually it got to the point where it was apparent that he was gonna die in a not-too-good manner. So…she had to finally put him in a home. Well, Shirley…(sighs)…I don’t know why, but she just took this burn to it. Now, she wasn’t gonna take him in. You know? And Mimi was old! I mean, she couldn’t watch him and besides she had to work some. So, she just tormented that poor woman for 5 years. And then finally, when she died… Well, when he died, I should say this first. When he died, she went to the funeral home, she took pictures of him in his coffin and then she blew them up and she gave them to Mimi for Mother’s Day present.”
[Long pause]
Lucia: “What?!”
Nana: “Yea.”
Lucia: “Wait, Mimi was your grandmother, right?”
Nana: “Yea.”
Lucia: “Of the…so she…”
Nana: “So she, she blamed her for my grandfather dying, which at least he died in a place that was warm and safe.”
Lucia: “Yea. Rather than out in the snow.”
Nana: “So she took pictures of him in the coffin, she made 8 by 10 glossies out of them, and she gave them to my grandmother for Mother’s Day and said, ‘There, I hope you’re happy.’”
Lucia: (mumbling) “That’s fucked up.”
Nana: “Isn’t it?”
Lucia: “Excuse my language.”
Nana: “That’s, that’s being… the pictures that you took of the family and of Nonie are beautiful because it shows love, it shows a beautiful aging process. You know?”
Lucia: “Mhm.”
Nana: “See the difference?”
Lucia: “Yea.”
Nana: “One would be offensive. One is beautiful… Don’t ever worry about that.”
Lucia: “Mkay.”
[Break]
Audio #10
Lucia: “I mean I remember when Ma first told me to start taking pictures of Nonie, and I was like, ‘Really? O-okay…’ She was like, ‘It fits your project.’ And I was like, ‘I mean, I guess…’ I was kind of, it was weird, you know? That wouldn’t be the first thing that I would think Ma would say, to photograph Nonie, you know? And it was, it was weird because she was saying it for the reasons of ‘These are the last pictures we are going to have of Nonie.”
Nana: “Mhm.”
Lucia: “But then I remember Alyssia saying, you know like, ‘I don’t wanna remember her like this…’ So, I was kind of torn in between that I want these pictures but at the same time ‘Do I want to remember her this way? Is this the way, you know, she’s going to be portrayed as?’
[Break]
Audio #11
Lucia: “Um, I…”
Nana: “It’d be interesting someday to get out pictures and I’ll…put the whole sequence…”
Lucia: “Okay, (you can hear her smiling) we can do that.”
Nana: “…From the youngest picture I have right up in order…
Lucia: “We could do that for my show…”
Nana: “…to the very last.”
[Break]
Audio #12
Nana: “It’s like…your biggest memories aren’t gonna be of that part, it’s gonna be about the part that you grew up with and how she looked. But this part finishes the story. You know what I mean?”
Lucia: “Yea, it does.”
[Break]
Audio #13
Nana: (Finishes laughing, sighs) “Ah…make me laugh…”
Lucia: “I…(sighs)…I love you, Nana.”
Nana: “I love you too, Honey.”
(Nana and Lucia chuckle and kiss, making a muah sound)
Nana: “Love you, Sweetie.”
Lucia: “Love you.”
[End]