{"id":75151,"date":"2014-08-08T16:43:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T20:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=75151"},"modified":"2014-08-08T16:43:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T20:43:15","slug":"overheard-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/08\/overheard-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Overheard in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The_First_Steps_1889\"<\/a>

Georgios Jakobides, The First Steps<\/i>, 1889<\/p><\/div>\n

Now that it is going to be sold, my grandparents\u2019 house, and the summers we spent there, seem cloaked in romance. I remember the trips to the thrift store, the games in the phalanx of sheds, the maple bars from Red\u2019s Donuts, nature walks with my uncle, reading Green Mansions<\/em> in the woods. It is easy to gloss over the rest.<\/p>\n

It was a place of strong smells. Mint in the yard. Eucalyptus trees on the drive. Talcum powder and Lysol and always a potato rotting somewhere in the kitchen. It would have been a good place to be blind. Or, it would have if every inch hadn\u2019t been covered with constantly shifting stuff.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t seem to stop thinking and writing about my grandparents, lately. Well, they\u2019ve been on everyone\u2019s minds as they clear the property and sort through the family politics. I suppose I\u2019ve been fumbling for some sort of eulogy. I\u2019ve started to write about singing gay nineties songs around the piano, about family holidays and the day we all dressed in costumes for a group portrait. But I don\u2019t think any of that really tells the story. If I were to try to say goodbye with one story, I think it would need to be a conversation I overheard one day. My grandfather called every evening; I walked into the kitchen to find my mother on the phone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHas Mom agreed to this?\u201d A beat. Then, exasperated, \u201cThen that\u2019s not a suicide pact, Dad; it\u2019s a murder-suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that it is going to be sold, my grandparents\u2019 house, and the summers we spent there, seem cloaked in romance. I remember the trips to the thrift store, the games in the phalanx of sheds, the maple bars from Red\u2019s Donuts, nature walks with my uncle, reading Green Mansions in the woods. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[14917,14918,14708,9486,124,4693],"class_list":["post-75151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-eavesdropping","tag-family-life","tag-grandparents","tag-homes","tag-new-york","tag-nostalgia-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOverheard in New York<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on fumbling for some sort of eulogy as she sells her grandparents\u2019 old home.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/08\/overheard-in-new-york\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Overheard in New York by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 8, 2014 \u2013 Now that it is going to be sold, my grandparents\u2019 house, and the summers we spent there, seem cloaked in romance. 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