It�s taken me a month to save up for this lousy trip and no one is happy with the way it has turned out. My brother is frustrated that I�m hauling him around on "some seventh grade civics project," and that I�m behaving like an "octogenarian genealogist who took up family trees as something to tide her over between crocheting projects." "We should have gone to goddamned Historic Williamsburg if we aren�t going to even bother with the stupid sports teams," I hear my brother mutter when he thinks I�m not listening. Maybe we should have gone to goddamned Historic Williamsburg, I think. This is too much.

I expect to feel more as I enter through the oppressive corridors and vaulted halls. As I pass each place, I wonder, "Would he have spent any time here?" "Would he have seen this thing?" I ask each brick, each flake of plaster. I thought I would feel a bolt of connection, a trembling that my grandfather left, but I just feel tired and cold. The tour guide is boring; my shoes are pinching my feet. There�s something impressive about the place, but then, it is all falling down. The whole place is falling down � there are trees growing through the cells. I wonder if a tree is growing through his cell. I like this idea. I turn to my brother and announce that I am the tree growing through my grandfather�s cell, and he tells me not to quit my day job, Miss Poet Laureate.

2002-12-17, homework

before / after

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