To all the young women with ticking biological clocks, let me tell you what you have coming.  When your kids get into their mid twenties, and you start looking at their baby pictures and videos you start thinking about being a grandma, or in my case a yiayia.  It's the other "biological clock", but it has a twist, let's say a number of twists.  

First you are not supposed to look forward to being yiayias.  We are supposed to always want to be young women competing with young women, cougars, botoxed and forever hormoning into eternity.   Our goal is to be desired.   

Being a yiayia seems like a sentence, a death sentence of sorts. A sentence that we are supposed to shun and squirm when references are made to being a yiayia.    The end of being the object of desire.  

A yiayia is not granny, not nana, well, she could be a" nona", or" abuelita".  A yiayia is a Greek grandmother.  David Sedaris called her the early version of the ATM machine.    To some she is simply a  white haired woman with ample bosom shrouded in black clothing, sitting alone, silent in her memories, waiting for death to come.  That is the simple version of yiayia.  

My brother recently found a video of my daughter and son at age five and three respectively .  I was asking my daughter questions about yiayia, my mother.    My mother is behind her playing cards with cigarette in hand and yes white hair, but dark blue pants and a wonderful periwinkle sweater, her three pearled pin that was her mark.  

" What do you do with yiayia? "  

"Well, we draw together, she gives me cookies and we watch game shows".

Gulp, a record for eternity of my bad parenting, but of the great yiayiaing. 

******************************************************************* 

This is  my yiayia reverie :  

I am in my garden with a three year old grandchild talking about the plants, digging with the little tyke.  Watching from the corner of my eye as he/she eats the early berries and smooshes tomatoes.  Sitting on the chair in the back, with the tyke on my lap, talking about moles.  Making up stories about moles, crows and cats.  

Baking bread,

eating bread and honey.

Memories of my yiayia flash in: 

My yiayia, although she was frail and blind, would get on the bus in Alexandria, come to our house, sit and tell me stories.  Her hands, her look, her touch of my face all still are in my heart and soul.   Sitting on that lap, is where I go when the world gets twisted and sour.  

Hours of stories sitting in the sun by the window, she dressed in black, her sparse white hair held up by simple hair pins.  I would touch her wrinkled face and she would smile.    

Memories of my mother as a yiayia follow:

My daughter did the same with my mother and so did my son.  She held them in that lap and sang lullabies.    When I was working she was that pair of eyes in the house with the caretaker.  She cooked her soup for them on rainy days.  She scolded and praised them.  She taught them to play cards. 

She wished she could do more,  I wish she was here to see my daughter and son as grown ups.  I wish she was here so I could boast and know she would understand.   What a better ally to have when raising your children than a yiayia.  

***************************************************************** 

How do you know your grandmother clock is ticking?  It starts with Facebook.  You only like the pictures of the toddlers, you start to wonder if parents will think you are stalking.  You stop yourself from liking Jon Henner's toddler all the time, he may think you odd.   You wonder if you will live long enough to see your grandchildren.  You join a gym to start exercising again, so that you can keep up.  

You fawn over Avatars with babies on Open Salon.  In crowds, you are not looking for sexy men, you look for the three year old.  Family and friends start to notice that the pictures you take are of random children.  They like the pictures but their faces have a strange expression.  Your youtube baby video watching does not go unoticed.  

You read a review of  Where the Wild Things Are ,and you wish you had a "one" to take to the movie,   you wonder when the new Pixar movie will be out.    You want to rummage through the boxes to find the book and read it.

 You make sure the changes you are making in your new house are toddler friendly.  

Some may think of this as a morbid, sad and end of life wish.  Boomers are supposed to always be twenty, holding on to that age of tight skin, rock and roll and life long orgasms.   Why would anyone in their right mind not want to be Forever 21?  

I don't know, there comes a time when our desires are somewhat complex. Who would think that coveting grand children would be so powerful ? 

The final ironic twist to the Boomer is that we raised  children that can make choices.   The choice of me being a yiayia is not mine.  It is in the hands of the ones I raised.   Do they want to be parents? 

Till then, I will sit back and bask in my desires.