A List for Mom

This is a list for my Mom.

She will understand why.

1. "I would like to porch sit with you."
As a kid, we used to spend late warm summer evenings on the front porch of our city home. We had webbed and plastic tubed lawn chairs. My mom had a glass of wine. We would sit quietly and listen to the wind blow softly through our cheap wooden owl windchime and wave languidly to neighbors as they walked or drove by us. That thermally pleasant sundown time, in the sticky air, pre-bath, but post-events of the day, was the most relaxed I have ever been, then or since. In yoga class, when the instructor tells us to go to that place in your mind where you feel most at ease, I picture myself on that porch, with unwinding braids and dirty feet, smelling of slightly soured suntan lotion, with the sweet whiteness of the wine, hearing the chirpy hum of crickets and the tintinnabulation of slow moving vehicles. That was bliss for me.



2. "I would like you to hem my pants."
My mother was a first class seamstress and corrector of ill fitting hand-me-downs. We'd spend hours in the fabric store, me looking at the shimmery rhinestone buttons on slick white cards as she methodically thumbed through drawers of patterns, looking for something suitable for me. One of my most vivid memories is my unfeigned impatience at standing near the sewing machine, my mother kneeling in front of me with lips full of silvery straight pins, mumbling (and occasionally glaring) at me to stay still. I used to like the fact that she couldn't fully express her disdain with my fidgeting in that compromised position but I also was scared to death of the idea of her suddenly choosing to and mistakenly swallowing a dozen tiny swords, effectively rendering her a human pincushion.  I would like to stand in front of her again so that I could be the model child that would have appreciated her efforts instead of begging her to hurry so that I could go throw the ball around outside.



3. "I would like to model clay, draw fashion plates, and play checkers with you."
These are the three most fun activities we did on the regular before I became a teenager. I was not artistic, and couldn't seem to get the hang of three dimensional animals so while I made ugly flat black cats out of clay, my mother would make romping frogs, cheerful lions, and sleek seals, all so realistic that I would carefully carry them in my hand to school to show my friends. Then, on the way home in my backpack they would flatten and smoosh so that they looked less like her creations and more like mine.



4. "I would like to collect for cancer and work for the census with you."
My mother constantly described herself as painfully shy when I was little. She used to tell me all the time to go out and be social and focus intently on not being like her because her tendency toward reserve was a nagging problem in adulthood. When it came time for charity, though, my mother would summon some sort of shyness-defying strength within when the call came and she'd put on a pretty plaid shirt, her flared jeans, purple Avon eyeshadow and her chunky wooden clogs and we'd clomp up to people's doors singing "Collecting for cancer, would you like to give?" It's like a 40 year involuntary tic that runs across my mind every time I get tagged for a fundraiser. I can still see her holding the envelope in case we were lucky enough to find someone who was kind and generous. A couple times we haphazardly said it in unison, and people seemed charmed by that. Around that time, Mom was also a census worker and we'd take photos of homes with a Polaroid camera which she was given for the task. It was my job to jiggle the damp pictures dry and keep them from sticking together as we drove around. I miss singing charitable jingles and flapping plastic house pics in my little hands.



5. "I would like to hang off your float in the lake."
Mom was employed by a local manufacturing company which made paper and foam products. Back in those days, employees were able to buy inexpensive "seconds" so we had Christmas napkins in shades of green that weren't quite the right shade of holly and ivy and we had 25th Anniversary napkins printed in gold on cream that should have been silver on white; but the day Mom arrived after work with the huge snowy rectangle of pressed foam flake was the best. Her company was trying to make some sort of dense product, for what purpose I don't know, but it was created in substantial sheets about 4 inches thick. One of the product runs was insufficient and thus, seconds were available for take-home. Mom procured one and when she arrived home with it, we both squealed with joy. It was a never-flatten, no blowup required, queen sized pool float! That weekend we brought it up to the family camp and she pushed it out to waist deep water and climbed on. I kicked my feet and propelled her out further, away from the splashing smaller kids and we just hung there, her relaxed and quiet, me humming and fluttering my toes, but just barely...ever so slightly so that the fish didn't bite me. She a siren, me a mermaid.



6. "I would like to watch a variety show with you."
I love variety shows more than any other television format because I watched them with my mother. Donny & Marie, Sonny & Cher, Tony Orlando & Dawn, The Mandrell Sisters. We'd watch and I'd ooh and ahh over the costumes. We'd toe tap to the music. However, if one of the characters, in slapstick style, fell over something unseen and rolled around a little, my mother would laugh hard enough for the two of us. She'd howl and then laugh in a high pitch and then howl again. She adores physical comedy: pratfalls, foul-ups, bloopers and blunders. I used to spin around to the ice skating and the little bit country/little bit rock and roll ditties but when the comedy bits began and someone was about to fall down, I knew to go sit on the couch and try to mimic Mom out of the corner of my eye, taking cues as to when to laugh even though I wasn't sure why tumbling was so side-splitting. As I grew older, I understood. There's a complete lack of pretense. A total surrender to the craft. There's an element of danger. There's a feeling that suffering can be made into humor. Comedy and misfortune rolled into one.


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