novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- seed warts when my grandmother was eleven she had seed warts all over her hands. she held her palms out to me and pointed out the twenty-three areas, perfectly smooth and unmarked now, but she remembered each spot. they were in the same place on each hand. see this finger? right here on the other hand, too. it was hard to write. those were seed warts. big. back then you didn't go to a doctor for warts. the depression was in its final stages and all the children shared shoes. but they would not hold my grandmother's hand; too sweaty, too bumpy. seed warts. mothers would share old wives' remedies with my great-grandmother: rub one penny on one wart. one penny for each wart. after you've done that, don't give the pennies away. bury them, or just get rid of them somehow. don't give them to someone else. the warts will disappear. over the next few years my grandma slowly gathered twenty-three pennies and performed this ritual three times. seed warts still sprouted. that was a lot of money back then! i was pretty mad. a while later one of the kids in her class told grandma to rub a potato with no eyes over the warts, and then bury the potato. if the potato rotted, the warts would disappear. my grandma rubbed the potato all over her hands. in the nooks and crannies of her fingers, the creases of her palms. over the blank spots no warts had touched, too, just in case. she took a thin wooden bucket and broke it apart. she used its sides to fashion a coffin for the potato and then buried the box in the dry, packed dirt running underneath a roof overhang where the sun did not shine. a few days later my grandmother woke from a dreamless sleep and felt her hands. i took the bed apart to see if i could find them, i thought they fell off. no warts anywhere. 7:47 pm - 04.30.04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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