The Daily Writes

Don’t you have a big closet honey?

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My mother is hilarious. She is a sweet, loving, deeply religious woman who has a spicy side. The other day I was talking to her and she asked me, “Don’t you have a big closet honey?” I said, “Well, it is a good size, why Mom?”. She went on to say that perhaps my husband and I could sneak into the closet for a little “fun” during the work day.

There’s a reason my Mom was pregnant seven times in nine years. And even though she lived through a tough, 36 year marriage, she firmly believes that a little nookie is the key to keeping things content and flowing smoothly in a marriage. “Love is a decision,” she tells me regularly. I’ve been married now for five years and she shows an increasing level of concern for how well I take care of my husband. She regularly reminds me that my son will grow up and my husband will still be there.

Just after midnight on Saturday morning my Mom had a health scare and landed in the ER. I received a text from my aunt and immediately called her. Luckily the ER nurse was able to let me speak to her. She sounded okay, she reassured me as she usually does when she is ill, and she closed with a line that confirmed that her snappy spirit is still in tact. She said, “I’m okay honey. Now, where is John? Why don’t you go wake him up and play.”

This is your life…as a butter knife

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When I was young, my Dad would occasionally talk to me about life. This often happened at dinnertime, and oddly there was usually a butter knife involved.

“This is your life” he would say, while putting his fingers on either end of a butter knife, “You are here”. His finger would move just slightly to show a minuscule advance on the knife turned ruler. I remember rolling my eyes and thinking, “Whatever Dad”. It seemed that grown ups always had some tale like this, talking about how short life is and how it goes faster and faster all the time. I knew I certainly felt more grown up than I was then, and was definitely at least halfway on the butter knife scale.

Now at 43, I understand what he meant. I don’t feel older, but as the  days and months pass by, when I hear music and it brings me back to the mini skirt, frosted lipstick, big hair days of my youth, I realize that I am getting old. I now have a hair strategy (telling in and of itself) that “incorporates” the gray that is growing in so rapidly. I refuse to succumb to monthly hair appointments or to hiding the signs of my age. I want to wear wrinkles and gray hair as a badge, and to move forward with my head held high into the next few decades. I think anyway.

The butter knife analogy comes to me often these days. And I use the phrase, “Back in the day” way more than I should.

Caregivers

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For the February issue of the GGMG Magazine, I volunteered to write a piece about my mom and caregiving. The issue was covering caregivers from various perspectives and I offered to write about how my mom, the ultimate ‘mom’s mom’, has become someone who my sisters and I now care for in many ways.

The only way I know how to write is to throw the words onto the page when the inspiration strikes. Or when I’m not thinking much about writing. In my highly overanalyzed and over processed world, the only writing I can tolerate from myself is the raw, tell it like it is, style.

The caregiver piece made me nervous. I wondered if I could throw words onto a page when it came to a topic that was so charged, so highly emotional. And how would the editing process work? Would I be able to let go enough to make adjustments?

I threw words out, they landed, and were edited by people who offered insightful comments. Once again I find myself uncomfortable. I am beginning to understand that this feeling may mean progress.

February Article

Where do I want to go

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I want to hike Mount Kilamanjaro and then sit on the beach in Zanzibar.

I’d like to trek in Nepal and come back looking at my world with unfamiliar eyes.

I would like to be able to fly, quietly, like Superman or Santa around the high rises downtown and look into the windows and the lives of the people who live in the sky. I want to see what they do, how they live.

I’d like to go where people who die go, just for a little bit. I’d like to talk to my Nana and Grandpa, and my big brother.

I’d like to go to Italy, travel light through the cities and towns with no schedule.

Often times I only want to go to the sofa, with my big comfy blanket, so I can sit and watch stupid TV for hours on end and not talk to anyone.

 

The lines

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She’d had a boyfriend who wouldn’t walk on the lines on the sidewalks. It made for very interesting experiences. He was especially terrified of the grates. He was big and hulky and hot, the line and grate thing humanized him.

She babysat a friends kid awhile back. They colored and his little, earnest hands gripped his crayon so tight his fingers went white. He was concentrating so hard, trying to stay in the lines of the Sponge Bob figure.  It took some of the joy out of coloring.

She flew Southwest Airlines.  Before they set up the new numbered system she used to watch the lines with amusement and surprise. People were so fascinating, she thought. Here were grown men pushing children, women, anyone to get to the front of the A or B lines.   She flew with SWA often enough to know that as long as you were somewhere in the B line you’d be ok with carryon, C it was a crap shoot.  Each time she flew she was amazed at the behavior that would emerge in people, panicked to get in the spot they wanted.

She regularly drove up to wine country.  As she made the transition from urban downtown to country, she marveled at the beauty. It was striking to her, but didn’t resonate like the lines of the tall skyscrapers near her house, or the swoop of the cables on the bridge.  But as she drove, she looked at the rows and rows of grapevines, some straighter than others, and wondered at what an art form this type of agriculture and farming is. She had heard someone explain that one of the well-known wine makers in the area was meticulous about his vineyards. They were immaculately groomed, set in perfectly straight lines. This was part of his art, vineyards cared for like small children until they grew and gave up their fruit to people picking it by hand, and taking it on the journey to make a great wine.

She herself disliked lines. She stepped on them, colored outside of them, stood in them grudgingly. But as she’d seen and gone more places in the world, and expanded her perspective, she’d realized there was a purpose to structure and order. Sometimes the purpose was liberating, other times restricting.