Posts Tagged: daughters
“Karen, you Have a hint about your mother!” No kidding, Ancestry.
Why does Ancestry send me hints about my mother?
No, seriously. Ancestry is clueless as far as I’m concerned. It shows me as married to my dead high school sweetheart, and I have zero idea how to change any of that. My super-intelligent cousins on my birth father’s side are whizzes at genealogy websites and could straighten me out in five minutes, but how stupid would I feel, asking them? They are all STEM geniuses and I only have a shaky grasp on multiplication at this point (and I still say “times tables” and “take away” and “carry”, which causes my daughter to shake her head in consternation when I try to help my grandson with his math homework, and do they even still call it math?).
Anyway.
Clearly I helped myself liberally to the other side of the gene pool, where calculators were a fact of life, and not those expensive programmable calculators used by my more intelligent classmates in my rare college physics classes. The free calculators you used to get at the bank.
But back to my mother.
I thought of Mom this morning for the funniest reason: a taste in my mouth. My memory is often jogged by tastes and smells, and today when I gulped down the handful of prescriptions (three) and supplements (seven) that I take to keep my heart beating and the like, the flavor of one brought back a spill of sense memory. I accidentally bought the chewable B12. When I add water to swallow down this mass of pills, most of which probably just give me expensive urine, I taste that chewable vitamin taste.
This brought me right back to being five or six years old and finding a brown bottle of chewable vitamins in my mother’s bathroom. I was into everything as a child. In her notes, Mom called me snoopy and I guess that’s fair, though I prefer to think of myself as curious. Anyway, I opened this bottle and started eating these vitamins, which had a flavor close enough to candy to keep me going.
I don’t know what type of vitamins these were, or how many I ate. I also told on myself. I took the bottle to Mom. She didn’t take me to get my stomach pumped or anything of the sort. She had me drink a few glasses of Kool-Aid made her way: one packet of Kool-Aid and half the recommended sugar. We drank this to mask the sulfur flavor of artesian well water. I drank some Kool-Aid and nothing happened and life went on.
That was how it was in South Dakota. We were Midwestern children in the sixties, a hardier breed with great teeth from all the naturally occurring fluoride. We survived.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I also wouldn’t want any other mother. Ancestry might have hints, but I doubt Ancestry quite appreciates the balance of my mother as I do. She could be impossible, but she was my favorite person in the universe until I had children of my own. She was mercurial, curious, fascinating, frustrating. I am baffled by how she let me down in my adolescence, but she always loved me, a big old furnace of love.
So here’s a hint about my mother, Ancestry. Mom had her first child at age seventeen. An emotional, intelligent young woman left college, which she started early because she graduated high school at age fifteen, to become a mother. I understand why she felt ripped off. Her adolescence ended with motherhood. I don’t think she was well-equipped to help me navigate mine. She put me on the pill and put me out at age fifteen to make it on my own, a weird remedy or echo or repetition of what happened to her.
I also understand why she grieved when I had my first child at 22. She saw my young motherhood as a curtain going down on my life. As she watched me, I know she felt sorrow, anger, helplessness. But she was resigned to it. She brushed her hands together, considered me done for, and moved any ambitions she had for me over to my childless siblings. There, hope for a meaningful life remained.
A slight sea change.
Over time, Mom realized that I hadn’t exactly shriveled up and died. I’d just reproduced. She also felt a little defensive. Why was I making motherhood look so easy? Why did I do it without complaint or anguish over what I’d given up? I didn’t explain to her that much of this was a facade. Motherhood is a monumental struggle, and my marriage was a lonely, lonely place. I survived with the help of fierce friends like Jennifer and Karen and Sue and Bob and Debi. These people provided the companionship and emotional support missing from my marriage.
But here’s another hint about my mother, Ancestry. There’s a part of this of which I am not proud. I wanted Mom to think it was easy for me. As children, Mom let us know that motherhood had ruined her life. This was a steady drumbeat throughout my earliest years. “Never have children. They ruin your life.” “Parenthood is pouring from an empty pitcher. It uses you up.” “I could have had a life, if not for you kids. You took everything from me.” I heard this stuff all the time, and felt tremendous guilt until about age eleven.
That’s when it hit me that I hadn’t had any say in the matter. I began to smirk, roll my eyes, and yes, talk back. I actually said, “I didn’t ask to be born.” Which was terrifically snotty, and my brother and sister would look at me like, oh god shuttup Karen, you’re enraging her. But I figured out early that Mom’s truth should not have been spoken to us kids.
My petty revenge.
So when I was a mom, I wanted to shame my mother for how much she railed against motherhood when she was angry. I wanted to show her up. I wanted to glide and adjust and care for and laugh at the hard parts and make it look like a breeze. And I did, until my marriage fell apart. And I fell apart. And I needed help, and let me stress this, as a young woman with a high school diploma and three kids to raise, one of whom needed massive orthopedic surgery during the year a nasty divorce was unspooling, I needed so much help.
My then-husband had taken control of all our bank accounts. When I asked my parents for the funds to retain a divorce lawyer, I apologized. Mom said, “Honey, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to write this check.” She happily dashed it off and sent it. This is one of the many times my mother helped me. Mom showed UP. Two decades of financial help and encouragement and emails and phone calls and laughter. All my visits up to Bainbridge with my girls, and her delight at seeing them. Each daughter has specific memories of a grandmother they loved, and who loved them with no reservation.
Was she perfect? Is anyone perfect? Of course not.
Perfection is not part of the human condition.
I’ve done a great deal of thinking and writing about my teen years. When we moved to Montana, I was twelve years old. My life went off track when I was sent out into the wide world at age thirteen to navigate a dangerous environment. My sister and I ran with a rough crowd. I’ve examined all that, not to understand Mom, but to understand myself. I asked hard questions to ascertain the damage done, and heal it enough to live a better life. It would have been so easy to find myself trapped in sadness and anger. My mother was supposed to guide me, help me. She didn’t.
But I had this amazing experience while taking a memoir class with my dear friend Katrina. I wrote a piece that still hasn’t found a home called “The Corner of Skidmore and Haight.” It is an unsparing look at beginning of my second marriage and birth of my first child. Because I took this class from the esteemed and brilliant Martha Gies, it’s full of journalist-level reporting on Portland of 1981-82. Martha made me research the details of North Portland, the arrival of gangs, police misbehavior. But that’s a backdrop for the real struggle, which was two young people, aged 22 and 24, trying to figure out how to be married parents.
In this piece of writing, I played much of it for laughs, because that’s how I handle pain. But the pain is there. Whenever things at the corner of Skidmore and Haight felt hopeless, we survived. How? It wasn’t clear to me until Katrina critiqued the piece. Ever-so-gently, she said, “What impresses me is how over and over again, your mom and dad showed up and helped.”
The proof is right there on the page. My parents might have foundered in my teens, but from my twenties on, they were right there, helping. Over and over again. And they continued to do that until they both finally died.
I don’t think I thanked them nearly enough.
I was in my early sixties when I took this class. I’d been doing quite a bit of examination of my history, trying to understand exactly who I am before I leave this world. Katrina’s words showed me that I had a choice to make. I could focus my attention on the chaotic decade of my young life when Mom had no idea what to do with me, and whatever I needed was lost in the turmoil of her own unhappy life. Or I could shift my focus and appreciate what she did for me after I left adolescence.
You know, it’s like I finally grew the hell up.
So here’s another hint about my mother, Ancestry. There’s no good, no bad, no right, no wrong. There’s just Mom. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I miss you every single day. And thank you for all the days and ways you were there. There are no words for how much I love you.
Lilith Fair, and a Visit from Brother Steve
Missing my Brother
It’s been a hard month around here for a couple of reasons, but a large part of it has been missing my Brother Steve. I always called him that when I wrote about him and the name has stuck. He died at the beginning of December eight years ago. The month brings an overhanging melancholy, a longing for my brother that sits right behind my sternum. I guess it’s in my heart. It sits there, an aching, along with this sense that wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I could burst into tears in a heartbeat.
Not very joyful, for December.
So last night we had friends over to watch Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery.
This is a beautiful piece of documentary filmmaking. It is celebratory and elegiac and it fills you heart and then it breaks it. I’d gone twice, my husband once, but the couple we had over had never gone. I felt an overwhelming need to share this movie with them. It takes juggling to get four busy people to sit down together in front of a TV, but we managed it. 10/10, please find a way to watch it. If you were lucky enough to go, it will take you back, and if you were not, well, you’ll have a fuller understanding of just what an incredible experience it was.
My Lilith Fairs
The first time I went, Brother Steve and I took my daughters. So perhaps that’s why I woke up from a longer dream that started out with driving down Davis Street in Portland’s Old Town and realizing that a train had derailed and broken up and there was a train car headed down the street toward us (I was with a friend in my old minivan). Miraculously, I got us out of the way, but it was a huge emergency, “Here comes the caboose!” I called, as I steered us into a parking lot to safety. More cars kept sailing past and helicopters soared overhead, carrying away important pieces of the train, I guess.
We’d been on our way to see this friend’s son, so after various stupid dream-type setbacks we finally arrived at his apartment building. There was the usual dream nonsense, but eventually we were standing in a hallway waiting for this son to arrive, and an annoying man was explaining something to us. I think it was about music.
And who walked up but my Brother Steve, my own personal musical expert, smiling and happy and we hugged so hard. Then he continued on the conversation with this man in the way that only Steve could, with sharp wit and engagement and a mind that moved fluidly from topic to topic, making connections and demonstrating expertise without ever making you feel talked down to. And his wonderful seal bark of a laugh rang out, and his smile lit up his whole face, especially his blue eyes. It was a wonderful, wonderful dream. I woke up smiling.
And of course now I’m crying, but these are joyful tears.
It was like A Christmas Carol visit from Brother Steve to remind me of joy. Steve took so much joy in life, even as his health failed. I’m lucky enough to be healthy. I need to make sure I do the same. You have to understand that my brother always showed up when I needed him. He came down from Seattle all the time: when my marriage ended, he showed me how to get through the day-to-day, and he helped during the year one of my daughters was bed-bound with a surgical procedure and I had to go back to work. He helped financially when I went back to school. He was the world’s finest uncle to my daughters, here for every holiday and so overjoyed to celebrate. He was always sharing concerts with me in Portland and Seattle, more than I can count. And last night it felt like he could tell I’ve been struggling and he showed up again. Because that’s the kind of man he was.
It has been so hard to lose him but I was so fortunate to have him.
If you’d like to read about that trip to Lilith Fair with Brother Steve, here it is.
Always missing you, Brother Steve.
Posted on Dad’s 83rd birthday, an old post about his 65th birthday
ON OLD POST (from a defunct blog) (can I make this any more clear)
I found an old blog post from August, 2007, about a day when the family traveled to the coast to celebrate my dad’s 65th birthday in Astoria. Eighteen years ago! The baby in this post turned 18 this spring. I’m reposting it because I loved this day, and I miss my dad on his 83rd birthday, and I miss a couple of other people who are in this post. But not T. T is right here. T and I are MARRIED now.
Old blog post begins NOW
Yesterday was the day my family converged on Astoria to celebrate my dad’s 65th birthday. The theme was ”You’d better retire,” which of course my dad retired many years ago, so that was, like, a joke. Brother Steve drove down on Friday, and Younger Brother, Sis-In-Law, and their Baby came down yesterday AM. I drove over with T, my sister, and Oldest, because my other two had to work.
This is the first time I’ve seen my dad’s new digs. I love his home, which is very near the Goonies house, if any of you remember the movie or know the Oregon coast. So his view is spectacular, especially from the second floor. The house was built in 1885, and has fabulously slanting wooden floors, crooked eaves and 11-foot ceilings. I admire the amount of entry and walkway space, something that seems sadly lacking in homes built from the fifities on. Dad’s house is not large (though it was, I’m sure, in 1885) and it is all about the transitions, it has an entry and hallways and alcoves, and it has a narrow but looooong front porch that looks over the shipyard and mountains.
Dad cooked a porkroast on the grill and Younger Brother grilled steaks. We brought baked beans and seven-layer bars, and there were store-bought salads and some great bread for sopping up the juice from these mammoth steaks. The steak was so very good that I just wanted a private corner to be alone with it. And there was the ugliest bakery cake I’d ever seen, and presents, and I think Dad really had a great time.
The highlight was of course my lovely little niece. She’s grown up so much since I last saw her (at age two weeks) and she’s lost her funny little monkey face and she’s so very pretty. I kept saying that over and over again as she’d smile and kick and reach and grizz and fuss and flex and roll and do so many miraculous baby things, I’d say, ”She’s so pretty. She’s so darling. She’s so cute.” and wriggle with it. But at some point, Oldest and I realized that we were just praising her looks, so we launched into a murmured description of her other qualities that went something like this:
She also has a beautiful and intact self-esteem.
She’s athletic and capable and interested in team sports.
She’ll have many hobbies and interests, some of them to do with math and science.
She’ll never be paid less than a man for equal work.
She clearly thinks too well of herself to ever settle for less than the best a man can offer.
And so on. Sis-in-law was laughing so hard.
The way the day worked was, the baby would be awake, so we would all look at her, make conversation with her, exclaim over her, listen to her (she makes the most adorable coos and growls), hold her and take photos of her. Then she’d sleep or nurse, so then we’d all talk to each other. Then her little brown eyes would pop back into view and we’d start again with the baby adoration.
We followed the progress of a long-awaited full diaper with much speculation and encouragement. ”Sounds like she’s really going to town, now, listen to that little grunting.” ”Yup, I think she’s getting serious for sure.” ”Definitely going to happen.” ”Oh you bet.”
She had a cool folding crib/playpen/changing table thing that was extremely handy because while she was in it, we could group around her and all have a really good view of her actions. She would lie on her back in it and kick her feet and try to reach for toys that we would hold out, which is really cute right now because her hands come slowly together right at the length of her reach. Her fingers make a small ”O” and if the toy isn’t grasped by this slow and careful motion (like a claw machine), she sometimes gets distracted by her hands. ”Hey, look at these, these are cool, too.” She seems to have inherited the prehensile toes of her aunts. She immediately forgets anything that falls out of her sight, so peek-a-boo is currently out of the question, though I imagine she’ll be absolutely brilliant at it.
At one point, my sister, Sis in law, Oldest and I had been standing there watching her try to reach for the dinosour and the rattle and commenting on the perfection of her chubby little feet and the adorable shapes her mouth makes and my younger brother said, ”You know, I think if I ever wanted to make a woman trap, I’d put a little baby in the middle of it.”
There really were other people in the room, and Sherman the Great Dane, and Dad’s dogs, and the eating and the seeing of the house and all, but yeah. Then there was That Baby. And oh, did we enjoy seeing her.
My sister was sober and calm. She says she’s trying this new thing, a brand new thing in her life, which is, she just doesn’t lie. She’s not promising she won’t lie ever again. My sister learned to lie at a very early age and she’s done it her whole life to feel safe and occasionally powerful, so it’s not like she can surrender it forever. It was her coping and survival mechanism long before she discovered eating disorders, drugs, cutting herself, boys, shoplifting, compulsive shopping, drinking, or Munchausen’s and Munchausen’s by proxy. But the last time she entered rehab, she decided to give not lying a try and it’s been going all right so she’s continuing with it.
It makes her so much less tiring to be around. For reasons I don’t understand, her lying always made me tired, so tired that I’d want to lie down and sleep in the middle of a crowded room. It’s so nice not to have to listen to it. As a result, I really enjoyed her company. I really, really, really enjoyed her company the whole day. She rode behind me on the way up and on the way down, and we talked and talked and talked. It’s the best time I can remember having with my sister in 20 years.
I was tired when we got home, and for reasons to do with a lost house key, my ex-husband was here watching the game and keeping the dogs company when we got home. We talked with him for a bit, and then he left, and T went home, and Oldest and I fell into bed.
I’m in a good mood today.
The Old Blog Post is NOW Over
So that was the old blog post. My sister relapsed after this. It was a bad one. It took a few years for her to be in a place where we could be close again. But she got there. It’s hard that my older brother and sister and my dad are all gone. But it’s beautiful to read a day when they were all with me, and the ocean was shining, and we were celebrating.
I am retired, tired, and happy.
Just a quick note after I retired and before I retire.
Being retired feels like that first morning of summer vacation when you’re eleven, when you wake up and a vista of liberty stretches golden and glowing before you. Except when you’re retired, it’s forever and you’re old. I am giddy with happiness.
I am retired, and I am also tired after a Mother’s Day with my girls, my son and daughter in law, three grandkids, and my husband. It was an afternoon of laughter, noise, and delectable charcuterie provided by my oldest and her husband.
I requested a craft, so we all painted with watercolors. There are some absolute MASTERPIECES over there on the hutch. My middle daughter cleaned up the entire mess of a table. I have a fridge full of delectable leftovers so I should probably have some people over for drinks.
Now they have all gone home. I finished up the hand-wash dishes.
I am extremely content.
Free writing: This might work. It might not.
The Something, the Nothing
I haven’t been able to write lately because I have been seized in the jaws of outrage and fury. I can’t write about that because, in my day to day, I must function. I often write about nothing and try to make it into something, and today is one of those days when the drive to write is strong and the subject is off limits. So I am going to write about Nothing. Please understand, I am full-on possessed by the Something. I just don’t want to write about it.
So I was thinking about Rice-a-Roni this morning. Boxed rice/vermicelli mixes are a vice of mine. I discovered them when I was fifteen, and there was a certain herbed rice off-brand you could get four for a dollar. I can’t even remember what it was called (MJB Herb and Butter Rice?). So there I was in Yakima, fifteen years old and cooking dinner every night for my boyfriend, and that particular side dish made its way onto many a plate.
Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat, was more expensive. But there was a fried rice version with tiny almond chips that I could convert into something wonderful by adding sauteed onions, celery and mushrooms. I did that quite a bit. No one has ever liked this besides me, but that’s never stopped me from making it. The only thing that made me stop was nitrates. I was to avoid nitrates while pregnant, and I was pregnant or nursing for the majority of my twenties, so, no Rice-a-Roni.
I ate it this past week, which has been a comfort food extravaganza. We might as well be living in a flyover state, because it’s been baked ziti, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, tuna casserole, and the aforementioned dolled up boxed stuff (now nut-free). I am desperately trying to calm myself, to comfort myself with this food. It is really not working. At all.
This morning, I was thinking about what my daughters couldn’t eat while pregnant. Rice-a-Roni (nitrates) and cold cuts (no idea why here) and sushi (again, no idea why, maybe mercury). I probably wasn’t supposed to eat sushi while I was pregnant, either, but this wasn’t an issue for me in the 1980s. Back then, I thought sushi was a prank, and that no one would ever eat it for any other reason than they thought it made them cool. Then I tried it in the 90s, and discovered that the reason millions of people eat sushi on the daily is because it’s delicious. Who knew? Millions and millions of people, that’s who.
Enduring What’s Bad For You
It’s snowing outside right now, which generally makes me feel cozy and safe. I watch through my dining room windows, snug and smug, grateful for my life. But nothing makes me cozy right now. Nothing can make me feel safe. I have to remind myself to be grateful for my life. That’s what my grandma Lucille preached: gratitude. She was grateful for everything, and it kept her so calm.
I could use some of her calm right now. I am a calm person by nature. Some might even call me stolid. I’m not calm these days, but I am frozen in panic. I suppose that might resemble calm. Sometimes I remind myself to take deep breaths. Like a woman does in labor. She is in so much pain that she forgets to breathe, so part of the Lamaze training I had in 1982 was about remembering to breathe. To provide oxygen a body requires to withstand giving birth.
Did you know that a woman uses the equivalent of a marathon runner’s calorie expenditure when she gives birth? She also experiences the same euphoric rush of endorphins when it’s all over. That’s why she can do it again–that endorphin reward. Nature’s little bonus, to keep us all popping out children. But for some women, once is enough.
I have a dear friend who ran a marathon. She trained for a year with her Border Collie beside her, and ran the whole thing. Her husband and sons were there, cheering her on. And when she finished, in the midst of her euphoric endorphin reward, she said something like, “That was amazing and I never have to do that again!” That’s exactly what my younger brother said after skydiving on his 18th birthday. That it was fantastic, and he never had to do it again.
Some impossible things have to be repeated, apparently. Giving birth is survivable. So is running a marathon. Jumping out of an airplane, too. Usually. There are mothers who don’t make it, marathoners who have heart attacks, and skydivers who die in the air, or when they land. I understand those who choose the singular experience. “I did it once, I made it through, that’s enough.” Other people are hooked on it. They thrive on the danger, the rush. They never stop.
How to Do It
I am not a risk taker. I am more of a shepherd; fiercely protective of my own safety and the safety of those in my charge. I understand the fragility of life, but don’t do enough to guard my own health. I should not be eating nitrates and casseroles if I want to extend my years on this planet. I think that’s all right. I matter a great deal to a few people, and nothing at all to the majority. This world will carry on just fine when I’m gone.
Sometimes I need to remind myself of that, my insignificance. I pull back and take a high look down on this world, this tiny rock in an infinite universe, the life that clings to it thanks to a fragile layer of hydrogen and oxygen. The world’s problems are so minute from that view. So small that they hardly exist.
But I live here, in this layer, on this rock. The far view might ease my pain for a moment, but I have to come back to my dining room table, where I sit at a computer, where the snow is still falling, soft and white outside my window. I watch it and wonder and wait. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I have three grandchildren.
I guess I’m waiting to see what the world will look like for them.
The Bed
The Bed is Won
My mother entered contests obsessively. Her prizes ranged from the grand—an emerald and diamond ring by Cartier (Benson & Hedges) to measly—aprons, spatulas, paper towels. She won a $1000 energy savings certificate in 1979 (Portland General Electric), with which she purchased gigantic tank-like Amana Radarange microwaves for herself, me, and my sister. And, right around 1977, she won an enormous oak four poster/canopy bed (Meier & Frank), which she immediately gifted to my older brother.
I wish I had a photo. The contemporary design utilized the grain in a large V on the headboard, framed out by smooth, thick, incredibly heavy 8-inch planks of wood. The posts were triangular in shape, with smoothed edges, and probably ten inches in diameter at their thickest points. Canopy rails were also substantial eight-inch by one inch boards. It was planed and smooth and very modern, and massive. Each piece of it was so heavy that it took at least two people to set it up properly. The headboard was heavy enough to be a danger. I have no doubt that if it had dropped on a sleeper, it would have crushed a skull.
It looked like the most sophisticated waterbed imaginable, but it held a Queen mattress.
The Dangerous Bed Comes Home
Like anything heavy, unwanted, and perceived to be of value, this bed eventually made its way to me. But first, my brother used it, then my parents. I don’t think any one had an issue with the appearance of the bed, but my family tended to move constantly (unlike me). I think the actual physical labor of disassembly and reassembly wore them down, so it came to my house.
My ex-husband loved it because it was so manly and modern. I didn’t, my taste ran to antique teddy bears and vintage brooches, 1940s handbags and patchwork quilts with dust ruffles. But what the heck. I found a knock off of that Aztec-looking Ralph Lauren bedding set that was so popular in the nineties, and settled into my hyper masculine bedroom.
Bedventures
The bed was cozy, I will give it that. I always liked the idea of a Swedish sleeping cabinet, and there was something about sleeping in this big canopy four poster that reminded me of a cabinet, even though, as I said, it was styled more like high-end waterbed furniture. We tossed and turned on this bed, slept with our backs to one another, conceived a child. In this bed, I had migraines, the flu, and a seriously herniated disc.
This is the bed that danced in the early morning earthquake of 1993. I woke to the sound of a distant freight train that turned out to be an earthquake. Those four massive bed posts lifted and danced a jig while I lay there, paralyzed. My then-husband jumped up, stood in the bedroom doorway and demanded, “Go get the kids.” I replied through gritted teeth, “I can’t move, you do it.” But he was too frightened.
When he moved out, I changed up the bedding and made my bedroom hyper feminine. It was all floral, all the time, with many sweet gilt-framed items of a romantic nature, and majolica, and scented candles. But I didn’t get rid of the bed. I would regard it from my prone position, imagining how I could somehow decrease the ultra-sleek, ultra-masculine nature of it.
I would (mentally) shabby chic it by painting it, and perhaps add some trailing sprays of flowers to the headboard. I would leave it wood, but wrap the canopy frame with tulle and fairy lights. I also imagined long muslin curtains gathered with ties around the end posts. It was fun to envision those things, but the hyper-femininity was a post-divorce reaction that lasted only a few years. A lot of that post-divorce stuff went back to the thrift store from whence it came. The bed remained.
Bed Travels
My house has three bedrooms, and I had three growing daughters. We all needed our own space, so I moved into the family room. The bed came with me. It suited that room better. I was very tough in that room, finding my way back to myself. I had a big oak desk, at which I was working hard at finally earning my college degree and writing the Great American Novel. All my bookshelves were down there, and my oak blanket chest, so it was a very woodsy room, and that huge bed fit right in. I was glad I hadn’t painted the oak after all. This is the same point in time when I gave away all my clothes and lived in a pair of overalls, a pair of jeans, five plain shirts, and a selection of gigantic black shoes.
One weekend, my friend Sue came to visit for the weekend. She helped me do a huge bookshelf cull (I made $300 at Powells and used the money for a brake job). Together, we disassembled the gigantic bed and took it to the garage in an attempt to invest my room with a little more Aphrodite (I can explain this at another time, but things had gotten a bit lumberjack and I was trying to usher in the Goddess of Love). We worked hard to arrange the room in a welcoming way that was finally free of that massive oak bed. When we were finished, I looked around, thanked her, and said, “I miss my bed.” She burst out laughing.
She helped me move it back up from the garage and set it up again.
Bed Tidings
I slept in this bed for several more years. It seemed a fixture, dominating one half of the huge TV room that had become the fourth bedroom. And then came the house fire. The bed didn’t burn, but it was disassembled, cleaned, and stored in the garage by the contractors who restored my personal goods. It sat in the garage for a long, long time.
One girl was at college, so it seemed like we could occupy the three bedrooms again, and the TV room could once again be a TV room. I moved back into the main bedroom after the fire. I had a new king-sized set. The girls had new double sets because those bedrooms are tiny, and nothing more than a double would fit. What was I supposed to do with this huge oak queen bed frame?
It took up a lot of space. My dad was sure that if I put it together, photographed it, and put it on Craigslist, it would sell. But to who? It was huge, heavy, completely outdated. Now, in 2023, it might have a buyer, because the standards of “vintage” are always expanding.
I’ll tell you what I did with it. I left it in the garage.
Bed Terminus
In 2013, [Redacted] (a former boyfriend) and I were cleaning out my garage after finally evicting my sister’s belongings (another story, another time). I looked at the massive bed leaning against a garage wall and considered posting it. But I doubted there would have been any takers. I had to confront this massive monster of a bed.
He lived in Salem, and was loading his truck with wood to take to Salem’s wood recycling facility. Things like old plywood, some vintage shutters I’d bought in 1990 and never found a use for, a bookcase that collapsed when we tried to lift it, a bunch of scraps saved in case I needed a piece of wood (I never did).
I probably said it quietly. “Let’s load up that bed.” And we did. All nine pieces of massive, modern oak went into his truck bed, weighing that rig down like you would not believe. He drove it off and I never saw that bed again.
You know, sometimes, I still miss it.
(if you’re ready to read more of my musings)
The most-visited post on my blog: Bachelor Beds
Another bed-oriented post that people have enjoyed: Hideabeds and me
Where to read about the end of my relationship with [Redacted]: Shopping at the Used Man Store and other writings (it’s in the other writings part)
Why I don’t want a dog.
I don’t want a dog.
Not right now. But my nephew sent me this:
Yes, I did take a look at Sullivan. Here are his behavioral particulars.
He sounds perfect, right? Just the kind of impossible little dog I had last time. But I don’t want a dog right now. Why?
Maybe because…
The last two broke my heart. And dogs always break my heart. I have had six, now, and all six of them have inspired more weeping than any man.
I should have just stuck with cats. Cats come and they go. They might “belong” to you, but they will just move in somewhere else without a backwards glance at you. They do break your heart, but they’re callous about it. Dogs break your heart by being sweet and devoted and stupid.
The last two also broke the bank.
My first four dogs were fairly cheap, all things considered. They didn’t get sick very often, they ate whatever was on sale at the Grocery Outlet, and I had a magnificent vet who charged me according to the budgetary realities of a single mother of three who still wanted her kids to be able to have a damn dog.
I’m retiring. I can’t afford any more expensive dogs.
Or maybe I want to travel!
We like to go on trips. After Dad died, we had limited options for dog care. Below, I have posted the instructions I left for my friend Sarah, who stayed at the house while T and I took our honeymoon cruise to Alaska (this was before Dad died, but he was debilitated by COPD at this point). Maybe if you read through the whole thing, you’ll understand why I don’t have dogs anymore.
Here are her instructions:
Dogs:
FEEDING: The dogs wake about 6-7 AM. They go out the back door by the dining room to pee, then come in to eat. We have a lot of coyotes in our neighborhood, so please lift the blind and give the yard a visual scan before letting them out in the mornings, when the coyotes are still actively hunting. Same if you’re up at night and they get up with you when it’s dark. There is a flashlight on the end of the table to help in the dark. You can step out with them if you like, but it’s not needed.
Breakfast: They wake up STARVING. Don’t feed before 6 AM. Before breakfast, each dog gets a Lil Jac soft treat. Beulah’s should have one of her meds pushed into it. These will be set out on the buffet for you. Lita may or may not take a treat from your hand. Just drop it on the floor and she will snap it up. Beulah will definitely take treats from you.
The dog food is sitting on top of the woodstove right now because of ants. There’s a cup in there to scoop the food. It takes about half of that cup to fill their bowls.
Blue bowl = Beulah. Cover the bottom generously.
Orange bowl = Lita. Cover half the bottom generously.
The dogs always eat by their water bowl. They like to eat with their bowls pretty close together – 6 to 10 inches. If you’re facing the back of the house, Beulah’s bowl goes to the left and Lita’s to the right. Lita might hide under the table and take a little time to come out and eat. You should guard her bowl until she does because Beulah will eat Lita’s food right up.
Once they are done eating, they go out again to poop. Sometimes Lita needs walking to the back door. I have no idea why, she just likes you to verbally encourage her in a friendly voice, and walk her back there.
After they come back in, they usually want a tiny Milkbone. Those will also be on the buffet.
I change their water in the mornings and that’s usually fine for the day.
Lita starts crying for dinner about 3:30 PM. Don’t believe her for a minute.
Dinner: Repeat the food portion at 5 PM. No meds.
I call treats “treats” and “cookies.” The dogs know those words. Milkbones anytime. Lil Jac treats 2X-3X. Bribe them as needed, but NO people food. Beulah has a super-sensitive system and can only eat the prescription kibble and a few treats. A bite of egg or sausage will send her to the dog hospital with pancreatitis, sadly.
SLEEPING: The dogs will probably not sleep with you. There are three dog beds and they will probably sleep together in one. But Beulah might jump up on your bed to sleep. In that case, Lita might cry to get up there, too. She can’t get up or down from the big bed and will not try.
PEEING ANG POOPING:
The dogs are used to going on pee pads during the day, but if you’re home you can let them out every few hours.
Pee pads are in the hallway bathroom in the lower right cabinet. I put two down and leave them all day. Sometimes they use them a lot and sometimes they don’t. Like I said, if you’re there to encourage them to go out, they might not use them. Just throw pads in the kitchen garbage when they are soiled. If there’s poop (this is rare), dump it in the toilet before putting pad in kitchen garbage.
If the pee pads get soaked through/pee gets on the floor, I clean the floor with bleach spray and rags. I will leave both on the bathroom counter for you. Used rags get thrown in the utility sink in the utility room.
I usually let them out one last time around 9:30 – 10 PM. Occasionally Beulah gets up in the night and pees, so it’s good to have a pee pad down in the bathroom at night. She will go right to it.
Other dog stuff:
Lita’s challenges and temperament: Lita has seizures. Sometimes she screams during the seizures, sometimes she just twitches. Usually she has them while she is asleep at night, or in her bed. They do not hurt her and she doesn’t even remember them. She also has a bad temperament. She tends to snarl loudly when moved or disturbed, especially if Beulah is near. Her bark is worse than her bite. Just move her slowly and she will recover her composure.
Mobility: Beulah is limber and mobile. Lita is not. She can usually jump up from the patio to come in. Sometimes she needs a lift. She can’t go up or down the steps to the TV room.
Licking: Beulah is a compulsive licker of everything and it’s super annoying. If it’s bugging you, or if she’s licking the new furniture downstairs, tell Beulah firmly, “NO MORE LICKING.” Repeat as needed. It might take her a second but she will eventually give in.
Affection: Beulah will just plop right up on you, chuffing and happy. Lita might want some pets eventually, but she’s pretty teetery and ancient and might just stare at you. She likes very gentle belly rubs and rolls over to suggest them.
Door rushing: They are usually calm when we leave, but can rush other people at the door. Please be very careful of this. Tell them to “get back” when you’re coming in, and when you’re leaving, and they should back up and give you room. I do not think they are flight risks, but you never know. If a dog goes out front, bribe her back in by shaking a treat bag and super happy excited calling.
What to do if one of these old dogs should die: Please call (DAUGHTERS) for help. Wrap the dog in an old towel, like the pink one on the shelf in the hall bathroom, and put her on the bathroom vanity in my bathroom. Depending on how close it is to us getting home, doggie might need to be buried before our return. Neighbor Kevin can dig a (deep because of coyotes) hole. Please bury the dog (in the towel) near the magnolia tree in the front yard, but not directly under; Mylo is planted there. I keep collars and tags as keepsakes. If you bury a dog, she needs a toy for the afterlife. (DAUGHTERS), that would be Fliger or Fleopard for Beulah, and a fat one for Lita.
The end. That’s it. All the instructions. I found this in my files today and thought, I am so. Not. Ready. for another dog.
But don’t worry about Sullivan.
Someone else adopted him, so I don’t have to.
The Television: What’s on?
TV with no Guide
I didn’t have a TV childhood. We had a black & white TV South Dakota. My sister and I never argued over which channel to watch, because we only had three channels, and there was only ever one thing on at a time worth watching.
I acknowledge that “worth watching” is a highly subjective term. We waited all year for our chance to see The Wizard of Oz, and Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Go on, ask us to sing “In My Own Little Corner.” My sister and I will happily belt it out with all the whiny, screechy fervor of Lesley Ann Warren.
How did we know these yearly events were coming our way? Mom told us. People kept track back then, but how did they know? We didn’t use a TV Guide, I know that much. I’m not sure when I first encountered a copy of TV Guide. I spent my earliest years in a town with two channels, so we certainly never needed one in Claremont. Aberdeen had three channels, but that wasn’t exactly a buffet of choices.
We didn’t need a guide to lead us through the offerings of the Big Three. I suppose I might have encountered the TV Guide at the store, but there was no way my mother would have taken any of us kids along on a grocery shopping trip. We would have asked for things. In all my childhood memories, I remember being at the store with Mom once, an event so memorable that I wrote a poem about it.
The Advent of Color
When we lived in Aberdeen, one of my mother’s erstwhile suitors brought over a newer TV for her. It was a behemoth in a console, and our first experience with a color set. The first time we watched The Wizard of Oz, I went flying into the kitchen to retrieve Mom, to show her the miracle. Somehow, some way, they’d made it color in the Land of Oz! Mom let out gales of laughter. She had a wonderful laugh.
And so, we watched the offerings of the day in color for the first time. Petticoat Junction. Green Acres (which I hated but watched anyway). The Flintstones and the Jetsons. And I suppose we watched Saturday morning cartoons, but I don’t remember a lot of those. TV was a crapshoot. You turned it and hoped there was something. If there wasn’t, you turned it off and went off and played.
We left that behemoth TV behind when we moved to Rapid City. We might not have had a TV for a bit, but on his second or third visit to our house, my eventual new father brought a color TV to Mom. He was in the Air Force and probably got a nice deal at the PX. They married, we moved. We lived in Minnesota briefly, then moved to rural Arkansas.
Arkansas Airwaves
We lived on the farm, where we watched the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family. We found little to relate to in these shows. The Bradys in particular inspired a lot of mockery, but we watched their suburban lives play out with horrified fascination. What small concerns they had (aside from Marcia’s broken nose, that was a real concern)!
Then we moved to rural Montana. Cat and I watched even less TV there. We were up on a ranger station at first, and you don’t get much signal up there on the ranger station, and we’d outgrown the artificial families we’d watched in Arkansas. In Montana, we became unfortunately mature. Our tastes changed accordingly. I loved the Bob Newhart Show and the Mary Tyler Moore Show to pieces. I think I got a little Rhoda in there, too. Maybe some Phyllis. Again, there was no guide to what was on. You just pulled out the little knob and hoped for the best.
Yakima
I didn’t live with my parents in high school. I lived with my pretend husband (to make it clear, he was a real person but we were pretending to be married). Our apartment was across town from my high school, so I’d walk home with Bev, and stay at her house until my boyfriend was done with his day at the community college.
I think by the time I visited Bev’s house in Yakima, I’d lived in fifteen different places; houses and apartments both, many of which were charming, but most of which were decidedly lacking in mundane comforts. While at Bev’s, I’d marvel at the conventional ease of her family’s ranch home. My mother would have turned up her nose at the commonplace nature of it, but it seemed convenient to me.
They had an eat-in kitchen with a dishwasher, and a washer/dryer in the hallway. Two bathrooms, three bedrooms, which meant they had a spare room (what luxury!). In the living room were twin recliners facing the TV, with a well-thumbed TV Guide on the little table between them. This was my first exposure to this publication.
In my Yakima apartment, we didn’t have a phone or a washer/dryer or a dishwasher or a garage. We didn’t even have a TV, let alone a comprehensive periodical listing everything on the airwaves. I perused Bev’s parents’ copy with puzzlement. There was nothing in it that interested me. And the articles were about people I’d never heard of, on shows I’d never heard of. I didn’t see the point. Who cared what was on? None of it looked any good to me.
When we finally received a castoff black and white TV from my pretend husband’s parents, I was psyched. Finally, something to watch!
Disappointment
Unfortunately, we had entered the Rob and Penny Marshall era of programming, with a side of Charlie’s Angels. The TV offerings of 1978 held little to no glamor for me, with one beautiful exception. One afternoon, I found Dolly Parton’s syndicated half hour variety show. I’d never watched anything so charming in my life. I figured out exactly when it was on and watched it religiously. I didn’t need a TV Guide to lead the way to Dolly.
That TV stayed behind in Missoula Montana when I left the pretend husband, who had by that point become my actual first husband, in 1980. I didn’t have a TV again until 1982, after I had my first child. My little brother, who was 11 at the time, gave me a nine-inch black and white to watch while I was up in the night nursing my firstborn. She rapidly started sleeping through the night, but I’d wake up and pump anyway, as I was a super-producer and a friend from Lamaze class needed the milk.
I can’t remember what was on in the middle of the night—we certainly didn’t have cable—but I’d stare at that little screen, the volume so low I could barely hear it. Sometimes I dozed. Occasionally Tom Pederson (and Gloria, too!) would say, “WAKE UP!” and I would. I’d detach the pump and freeze the milk and go back to bed.
The Real TV
That little black and white TV was our only TV until 1984. During these years, I loved Taxi and Cheers. I enjoyed these dry and witty shows, and made a point of watching them on that teeny little TV.
Then my second husband went out and found us a good deal on a color Sony with a remote control. A note about this remote: it had twelve buttons, for twelve channels. That was enough back then, as we didn’t have cable for years. Another note about this remote: my oldest dropped it in her goldfish tank when she was four, and said, “Look Mom, I made bubbles!” She’d been disappointed that we didn’t have an aerator in there.
Cable arrived, then went away, then came back to our house, depending on the financial situation du jour. But of course, it eventually became a necessity. I was a single mother of three, just trying to survive the demands of working, going to school, keeping them all afloat through the chaos of our suburban life. If they wanted to take a little refuge in the travails of the Cosbys or the Winslows, who was I to complain? I thought those kids on Barney were creepy, as stiff and forced as if they were hostages performing with weapons at their backs, but if it made one of my girls happy to watch it, then she could watch it!
TV kept the peace.
Until it didn’t.
I was not prepared for the channel discord that came to my house once some of my girls aged out of the Disney channel and into the disarray of one wanting to watch Disney, one wanting to watch Mtv, and the other just wanting to fight with someone because that’s the age she was. The girls diverged, and the discord began.
Thankfully, these were three-way squabbles, not four-way squabbles, because I didn’t watch much TV. In fact, I hated most of what was on in the eighties and nineties. I could barely stand to be in the house on Friday nights, when they watched that block of insipid TGIF programming that included Full House. But I never made them change the channel. They would all watch that garbage peacefully, with no argument. Besides, my sister and I had watched Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. Who was I to complain about Steve Urkel?
But I couldn’t stand to hear it. And by “it,” I mean the TV and the arguments it started. So I bought all three girls their own small color TVs with DVD players built in, and had cable hookups put in their rooms. I took the larger TV out of the main room and put it in my bedroom—finally replacing the nine inch black and white I’d kept in there for all these years (bonus feature, it no longer had any knobs). Everyone had her own TV, her own cable, her own DVD player. There was no need to fight.
Of course, they still did. They moved all their squabbles to my bedroom, where they watched the larger TV in order to argue over it. It was on, and in my airspace, and there were things like Real World Challenge and Bad Girls Club penetrating my consciousness. The Kardashians. Teen Mom. I had eschewed TV for years, but pretty soon I was hooked on American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance and Project Runway. What a time suck. What a nightmare.
And then my friend Karl told me to watch Mad Men. And my oldest girl found Big Love and knew I would love it.
TV had changed, and I was hooked.
Today
I watch TV now. I’m somewhat appalled by how much TV I watch. When it’s time for mindless, I go straight to HGTV.
I watch all the NBA games with my husband, giving my own clueless commentary for a game I just vaguely understand but wholeheartedly enjoy. “He stands funny when he goes to the line.” “Those uniforms make the Nuggets look like old-timey acrobats.” “The Minnesota uniforms look like sailor suits.” “Oh, the guy with the deep-set eyes shaved all his hair off!” “Look at all the biceps for Jesus out there, what is up with that.” It’s really insightful and important commentary, let me tell you.
I’ve watched Game of Thrones all the way through. Twice. And I’ll watch season two of House of the Dragon once I can binge it. Season three of The Bear is coming soon. My favorite viewing experience, ever, is Schitt’s Creek. I think the best shows that have ever been on TV are Mad Men, Rectify, and Boardwalk Empire. I thought The Last of Us was phenomenal. I’ve never watched West Wing because I can’t tolerate how Aaron Sorkin writes women. I’ve never watched Breaking Bad or The Sopranos, and I couldn’t make it through Deadwood. And you know, I probably never will. Because there’s TOO MUCH GOOD TV now. A person has to make choices.
But if you’ve read this far, tell me what you love that you think I might love. Because, you know. I still like to watch good TV.
The Napkin
A mother’s dismay.
(I’m still stuck in the past, and stuck in the kitchen. This was from a Katrina prompt, “The Napkin”.)
My grown daughters don’t use cloth napkins, or paper napkins, or any napkins. I’ll be served a beautiful, even elegant meal at one of their homes, then handed a small section of paper towel to use as a napkin. I’m not much on formal table settings, but it feels wrong to me, a mistake, as wrong as if I’ve been handed a wad of toilet paper with which to dab my mouth while eating.
Where are the napkins in my daughters’ homes?
I’m not sure, and I want to trot out that old saw, “They weren’t raised like that.” But really, they weren’t. We had a basket of paper napkins on the counter for breakfast and lunch. At dinner, each place was set with a cloth napkin.
Getting Fancy
I didn’t encounter cloth napkins until I was a nanny, working in the aforementioned Vandor Country Kitchen home where I learned to roast a chicken, bake a fish, and use cloth napkins. I wanted to incorporate them in my own home. It made me feel fancy.
Proof of this is that I only use them now when company is here. So take note. If you come to dinner at my home and I’ve set the table with cloth napkins, I’m being fancy on your behalf.
The history of napkins!
I was considering that idea, the cloth napkin as fancy, so I did a little research, which means I Googled it and clicked on the first promising link that popped up in my results. I found this blog post while trying to find out when paper napkins arrived on America’s tables: The History of Paper Napkins (this is a blog for a store that sells paper napkins). Here is an excerpt:
Paper napkins themselves originate from ancient China, when paper was invented in the 2nd century. Chih Pha, folded paper square napkins, were used for serving tea. The historical accuracy of this is backed up by documents describing the possessions of the Yu family from the city of Hangzhou.
And when did North America start getting in on using paper napkins? They arrived in the late 1800s, but didn’t pick up in popularity until 1948 – because Emily Post proclaimed that “It’s far better form to use paper napkins than linen napkins that were used at breakfast.”
Emily Post approved!
My mother had adopted so many markers of class and taste reminiscent of the 1950s, but for all my mother’s airs, we always used paper napkins. Perhaps Emily Post is why. We still had to use our napkins correctly. She trained me to always keep my napkin in my lap, or if I rose from the table, my chair. A used napkin on the table was a definite manners misstep.
My mother wouldn’t have dreamed of using a paper towel next to a plate. Is that why I’m so horrified by that idea?
Mom liked to imitate how her sister, my aunt Elaine, carefully and firmly pressed a napkin to the edges and corners of her mouth. “It was like she was staunching blood,” Mom explained. I try to imagine handing my Aunt Elaine a scant section of paper towel for this act. What would she say? How would she adjust?
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO NAPKINS, I ASK YOU?!
More on the history of Napery
(Yes, “napery” is a word I discovered while working on my latest project, which is a novel narrated by a somewhat fussy man. Anyway.)
As I’ve explained before, I’m an inveterate thrifter. I also go to antique stores, which is less satisfying because everything needs to be looked at, and I find it exhausting. Anyway, I think, as a secondhand shopping wizard, that I’ve seen everything. But in this thrifting group I belong to on Facebook, someone posted one of these and I had no idea what the heck it was. It was something like this:
Does this confuse you? Good. It certainly confused me.
This is a serviette lady. A very fancy example, with salt and pepper shakers, and a tray to hold toothpicks, and something (a candle?) sticking out of her head. Less fancy models just have the skirt with all the slots in it. The idea is, you fold your napkins (clearly cocktail napkins for this one, which were a thing) and arrange them in the slots so that they make a bouffant skirt of sorts. Then you put her out with your lady luncheon or bridge club spread, and people take their napkins out of her skirt.
I probably don’t need to explain that my mother would not have had such an item in her home. She was gifted a ceramic frog scrubber holder by a neighbor that she grudgingly used for years, but that was the extent of Mom’s tacky ceramics. The woman had taste (unlike me, who has a full shelf of ceramic honey servers).
But I don’t have any lady serviette holders. That is a bridge too far, even for me.
Today.
My husband and I both have big noses that drip constantly as we eat. I have no idea when this started to happen but it’s annoying and makes the use of cloth napkins problematic. So we use paper. Big, fluffy white paper napkins, the costly kind.
He has a whole system where he folds down the top edge of the napkin, creating a demarcation between the part used for his nose and the part used for his mouth. I admire this while also thinking it’s kind of weird. He also sets his napkin on the chair next to him, as opposed to his lap. Whatever works, at least he’s using one.
Over at my plate, I’m working my napkins like someone trying to clean up after a flood. I use more napkins than anyone I know. Sometimes I’m eating in a restaurant with a friend, and I’m on my third while theirs is untouched. How do they do that, I wonder?
Alternately, is there something wrong with me? Even if my nose weren’t drippy, I’m wiping my hands and mouth constantly while I eat. Am I leaky and strange? Unduly repelled by food juice? Why am I such a mess?
Hope for the future.
The last time I ate dinner at my oldest daughter’s home, her in-laws were there. As she set the table, my daughter let me know that her mother-in-law had made this beautiful set of cloth napkins for her. I smiled and complimented her MOL on the beautiful fabric and workmanship. Did I only imagine that we shared a swift but knowing glance?
Acknowledged or not, I’m not the only person who believes in napkins.
Pass the Teacup – Happy Mothers’ Day
Tea Time
In her pantry, my mother kept three translucent teacups and saucers glazed with navy blue on white, accented with raised golden swags and dots. From these elegant vessels, she claimed to sip tea with her friend Jim while they worked jigsaw puzzles or did the New York Times crossword.
I had my doubts. We weren’t tea drinkers in my family. Mom and Dad started their day with coffee in ceramic mugs bought while touring England. Still, Mom kept her regal teacups, insisting they were objects of utility.
Hardly anyone in America uses the cups and saucers that come with their dishes, and Mom had a dozen in her English transferware pattern (Johnson Brothers, Old Britain). So she had no need of those delicate cups. I think she just admired their unmistakable whiff of extended-pinky snobbery.
Heading West
Mom came from rural South Dakota, but her parents relocated to North Hollywood when she was a young teen. She made friends with girls from prosperous families and enjoyed beaches, cotillions, and trips to Catalina Island.
These halcyon days came to an end when she married a sailor and became a mother at age seventeen.
Soon after, my grandfather’s business failed. My grandparents retreated to South Dakota. When her marriage failed, so did my mother, but she’d been infected with class awareness.
She never recovered.
The code
Social class had a code, and Mom wanted to crack it. She understood that the more comfortable echelons of society actually used their beautiful objects, so she strove to do this. She glowed with pride over her Johnson Brothers dishes. My parents ate from those pink castles every single day and ran them through the dishwasher.
On her entry table, she kept a huge antique Asian bowl she considered valuable. That was where she threw her mail and keys. Alongside it stood two large white ceramic rabbits with pink eyes; knickknack outliers.
My mother first saw these rabbits in an expensive gift shop in 1977. She spoke of them with longing and bitterness, because she never had enough money to buy anything as costly and wonderful as those big white rabbits.
My brother, sister and I pooled our meager funds and bought them for her birthday. We thought she would be thrilled, but she seemed disappointed that she could no longer complain about that particular deprivation.
Eventually, more white rabbits came her way as gifts. “I don’t want to collect anything,” Mom complained.
Collecting was middle class.
My mother would not suffer the social embarrassment of accumulating fussy objects that had no use. She preferred to pass them along to me with the admonishment, “You should keep this. It will be worth money someday.”
I accepted various knickknacks (including the largest white rabbit), ornate teapots, and flowery teacups, and kept them against that promise of future value right up until Mom died. Then, I quietly donated almost everything she gave me.
But not everything…
I claimed the various large white ceramic rabbits. Each spring, I display the entire fluffle on my dining table. I even added one this last year, so the current count stands at six. My mother would be horrified.
The legacy.
She may have thought it tacky to have knickknacks, but Mom had a stash of extraneous flowered porcelain somewhere. I’d seen it. After Mom died, my father offered up her small accumulation to me and my sister.
My sister reluctantly took “Grandma Lucille’s teapot,” ancient and oval, patterned with pansies. It had been promised to her years before with great solemnity. Somehow her desire to actually own it was never taken into account. She accepted it with duty, not desire.
I took two small bowl and pitcher sets, and a Wedgewood “Windrush” demitasse cup and saucer. Mom had the pitcher sets as for long as I could remember, but where had the demitasse come from? Had she bought it on a trip to Europe? Dad didn’t remember. It held no sentimental value, but was too pretty to let go.
Finally, Dad opened the cabinet and offered up the imperial three, those delicate navy blue and white teacups trimmed with gold, saying, “I’ll never use them.” To his surprise, Cat and I both declined. They meant something to Mom, but nothing to us.
Those swagged and stately teacups reemerged seventeen years later at Dad’s estate sale. They went quickly, I imagine to a person who never uses them. That’s what I like to think, anyway. I hope they sit proudly on a shelf, gathering dust, their potential utility ignored in favor of their regal beauty.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I miss you every single day.