Ways I am Becoming My Mother
1) I have exposed my ass in public. One of my mom's best stories, and one I still can't top, is a lively montage of the times she has accidentally exposed her rear end in highly public settings. I'm beginning to appreciate the humanizing quality of telling embarrassing stories about myself, both to put others at ease and to learn to laugh at myself.
2) I love NPR and will turn it up to deafening levels to feel like I'm participating in the conversation. My mom did this as she drove my brother and I to school when we were little, and the blast of the "All Things Considered" theme music is now both haunting and comforting. My mom taught me to use my down time in the car as a time to reconnect with what's going on in the world.
3) I love putting M&M's or Nestle's semi-sweet morsels under my tongue, one on each side, and letting them melt while I watch TV late at night. When I couldn't sleep and had growing pains in my shins, my mom let me stay up and watch "Dallas" with her and she taught me this trick. I learned then to appreciate small pleasures slowly, and to share them.
4) I make cookies when I'm sad. My mom taught me the recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and I've got it memorized now because I remember making them with her since I was very little. There's extraordinary comfort in this ritual, and it makes me feel less lonely.
5) I cultivate a healthy appreciation for the absurd. Whether she just bored or actually trying to teach me something, I don't know, but my mom always created voices and characters for every situation. Whenever she read aloud to my brother and I, each character had a distinct identity, style, and accent when they spoke. She had random voices and songs for cooking, driving, gardening, and cleaning, and I never thought it was anything but normal until I did the same thing around my college roommates and they thought I was nuts. Luckily, my husband also has whatever gene this is, so I don't have to stop singing the garbage disposal song.
6) I dance in the grocery store. God help us all, this is something I promised myself I would never do, but it's undeniable. Madonna's "Holiday" came on in the HEB yesterday and I danced by myself down the entire bread aisle, not giving a shit that people were giving me looks, until I caught sight of the ghost of my 7-year-old self riding on the side rails of the shopping cart and glaring back at her mother, who was defiantly dancing while she compared bunches of broccoli.
Ways I am Still Trying to Become My Mother
1) I'm still trying to master the grandiose way she tosses her head back and says, "Fuck it. I'm going to have a glass of wine and watch a little TV." This statement was borne of the incredible pressures of balancing an insane workload and still trying to have a home life, something I've failed at spectacularly at several points in my life. The "Fuck it" statement is a defiant act of self preservation, and a ringing call of "Halt!" to the pressures and expectations and perceived judgments that multiply exponentially all around her when she's under stress. My husband and I like to imitate the "Fuck it" statement, and when we do it might sound like we're poking fun at my mom, but at the same time it's a reminder to us that we're able to call a timeout. We're still working on this one.
2) In all things I am still trying not to take myself too seriously.
3) I am still trying to remember to stand up straight. My mother can conjure elegance and power simply by drawing herself up to her full height. Her acting background taught her the importance of how she carries herself, even when she's not actually feeling confident, and over and over again she's caught me revealing my mental state in my posture.
4) I'm still learning how to love someone with a demanding job that requires big moves and long absences. My mom has single-handedly moved our household to and from foreign countries in Britain and the Middle East, and whenever I start to compose the operatic lament of my next military move, I think of my mom sitting in coach with two infants on a transatlantic flight. When I think of my husband leaving for a three-month training school, I think of my mom and dad running up an $800 phone bill while he was in Saudi Arabia for a year and she was in Texas. I think of all the times she forced us to write my dad letters to stay connected, and let us cry when we missed him, and leave school early to pick him up.
5) I'm still learning grit, and class, and gallows humor, and the kind of unfailing loyalty that makes someone drive five hours to bring me a bed.
Love you, Mom.
3 comments:
Rachel, I cried like a baby when I read this. I have many of the same memories and appreciations and cannot help but admit that I am a total Mama's boy.
. . . it's "aisle" and not "isle". :)
Fucking hell. I meant like an island. "The Isle of Bread"? Duh.
Thanks-- I've noticed my editing's getting sloppy.
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