Grandma brings out the tea tray and sets it down on the table. “So where do you live now?” she asks again. “Cambridge,” I say. “Oh, my! I grew up in Newton, you know,” she says. Again she describes her daily commute from West Newton to Cambridge, and how a nice Harvard Law student gave her and another girl a ride in his car each school day in exchange for gas money. Her voice is very musical, so I start listening to the notes and the rhythm of her speech this time. Again she tells me how she found it so amusing that her “great big Harvard professor” had to walk all the way from Harvard Yard, in all kinds of weather, to teach her and the three other Music majors in Radcliffe College’s class of 1936.

This is the routine that she and I have. She lives behind my parents’ house now, and when I’m in Nashville I have tea with her two or three times, so we can go over the routine again. Her stories are a key to her longevity. She always tells them with the same exuberant sincerity. Sometimes I try refining my role a bit, but the conversation doesn’t change much.

She pauses for a moment and takes a sip of tea. I look up at her painting of Cambridge in the mid 1800s, the one that used to hang over the fireplace when she lived in Westport. The Cambridge Common and the First Parish are the only things I recognize in the painting. She asks again, “Tell me, do they still have cobblestone streets in Harvard Square?” “Yes, a few streets still do,” I say, and I leave it at that. She smiles. I’m not compelled to give her many details about my Cambridge, and I can tell she’d rather not have hers tarnished.

So she continues her questioning, in the usual order. “What are you doing up there in Boston?” This is always the most difficult one for me, so I stop to take a sip. It’s not that I don’t think she’d understand what I do—I could tell her anything and she’d be happy with my response. Her question is simple and straightforward—so much so that it throws me off. For a moment I see myself through her eyes, and it turns my whole life into questions. “Yes, what the hell am I doing?” I think. Am I still just as unfocused as I was last time we had tea together? I say something to move the conversation along. It’s an empty response, and she’s happy with it.

But I can’t get the question out of my head. We finish our tea and start cleaning up. Next time I see her, I think, I’ll have a real answer. Maybe I’ll write her a letter once I’ve untangled more of my life. I want my answer to be as simple and straightforward as her question.

A couple weeks after I wrote this, I got a letter from grandma, in which she recounted exactly the same stories about Cambridge and her time at Radcliffe.

I wonder what stories I’ll have on repeat when I’m 90 years old?