Mom-dern Vignettes

My Dear Body,

Today, as the days merge and dwindle in Quarantine, I stand before the mirror, ogling.  No expression. Just a head tilt and quizzical lips.  Simply contemplating you. Tomorrow, is Memorial Day.  Our summer kick off. And as I gander, our eyes drop slowly to the hand holding our nemesis. Our torture device. Our Death Star. Our… swim suit.

This crept up on us. I have no idea how this is gonna go.

You and I never seem to be on the same page and our battles over the past 38 years have been epic. All you can do is point out my every weakness. Cheese, chocolate, chips, Harry Potter and Grey’s Anatomy Marathons. You relish in my struggles and defeats. Our eyes drop knowingly at our feet, for all I ever do is replay your failures.

And they are vast.

Our eyes rise to the ankle you sprained before Junior Olympic tryouts. Rise. The hips you always had to make rounder, earlier than my friends.  Rise. The stomach you unhealthfully forced to gain over 100 pounds while pregnant with Wheels because tater tots and eggs were so good and stayed down. Pause. You fooled my rationale and just as unhealthfully forced us to lose 125. Rise.  You ballooned my breasts with so much milk I hated breastfeeding. And just as begrudgingly sucked them into oblivion like a black hole, which still compresses their womanhood.

Rise. Meeting each other in fixed focus.   You failed in delivering my twin girls.

We disconnect. Close. Tight.

God, you take years to heal. Our back. Our shoulder. Our ACL. Our hamstring. Our endometriosis.

You mock me. You warp me.

Can’t you ever just chillax? Stay the same?  Be consistent?  You always have to… change.  Constantly! I can’t keep up with your whims.

Opening, we hold our cruel cold stare. Testing. Willing one to break. Vicious we can be together.

Bringing your hands in front, facing our heart, right on top, left under. Together we inhale to offer peace. Exhale to become one.  Inhale to bridge our gaps. Exhale to fill the arid deserts of pain with joy in how far we have come. Rock forward, inhale. Rock back, exhale.  Just a couple breaths, and we soften.

Improvement.

With dallying brows, we drop our suit on to the floor, step into those tiny holes and begin the packaging process.

The pink grazes our poor, ugly feet. Runners feet, and an small Umbridge titter escapes. Passes over the scar on our shin from when I got drunk in college and you walked into a pole. Good times. Slides above the knee and tenderly caresses our thighs and grips outside our quads. Funny isn’t it? The ease. The beauty of the lower leg. But those damn hips.

Teeth gritting we grab the sides of that suit with white knuckles and PULL! Our legs flail out. PULL! Push back in. PULL! Not to be defeated we gyrate, body roll, Tootsie Roll, Butterfly, Twerk and for God’s sake PULL!

IT’S UP! ITS’s UP! Oh, thank you, thank you.

Every year its the same.  Out of breath after the hips! Smoothing the fabric up, it covers our powerful belly and allows our determined arms to slip through. Those two in perfect combination have held, created, and changed so many lives. As I tighten our straps and adjust the fit it hits me.

Far too often I judge you in parts. Belly. Legs. Hips. Glutes. Chest. Arms. Back. But it is their combination, their ability to join forces, strengthen each other and produce that I should cherish.  It’s your total physicality, that provides me a calm acceptance.

I check you out in the mirror.  Not bad! You are not perfect, but perfect isn’t for us. Life changes too much for perfection and I want to taste every change our life brings.  Together.

Now get your ass out in that pool and show those boys they still can’t beat their mom.

Much Love,

Brain

I woke this Mother’s Day morning intending a funny quarantine tale concerning Malcolm and knives, when consideration paused my hand with Why does your twisted mind find this funny? Serial killer intimations, probably not!?! But funny? Eh… oh yes! Yes it is. 

Yet still I pondered, why do I find his new found knife queries funny?

My line of quietly sarcastic women who’s sense of humor is either difficult to detect or so overt it confuses its audience, is long. My grandmother, Granny-Two-Shoes, began this path. She grew up in rural Ohio during the Depression, but my memory extends only to her life in Columbus. For 25 years, she wore two types of outfits. In the 80s, she dazzled in waist to ankle pale floral skirts and plain tucked-in blouses, while she furiously drove her white T-Brid. During the 90s, she drastically transitioned to bright swishy track suits and never looked back. That was her way.  Always put together in the manner she desired. Her perfect white coif and angelic smile hid her inner desire to thrill her grandkids with laughter, tinged in fear.

Well known to jump out at you from behind cabinets, or goose you when you least expect, she loved the element of surprise.  But it was her stories that stuck with me. Her most influential involved two snakes she swore would slither past her porch, stop, and stare into her soul. Daring her to leave. Daring her to stay.

Granny was terrified of snakes. Her only known disdain.

But the virile and detail of how these city serpents appeared out of no where, lived under her porch, waited for her and her only… maybe, filled my seven year old self with conflicting strife.

I’d shrug her off and start down those gray, chipping stones. Yet just before stepping off to sprint after my brother and cousins, I’d glance back to find her sitting primly next to her concrete goose, kitted out in a yellow raincoat.  Intent. Daring me to leave. Daring me to stay. Mouth tight with amusement. That half smile, always pushed my leap.

My mom took humor to a whole new level. With Granny Two Shoes as her quiet guide, my mom added  flare.  A shy, out of place middle schooler, I spent many hours in my room dancing alone to Evita or  Music Box. One night, after a shower, I spent an hour dancing before reducing myself to bed. Finagled deep in my twin, I pulled my white comforter sprinkled with petite pink tulips to my chin, and touched my lamp off.

Settled. Comfortable. Safe.

A slight, steady movement along my side shocked my eyes open, as a heavy arm crashed atop my body and a deep “GooooOOOTTCHAAAA” erupted from the quiet.

A scream for which I did not know I was capable, choked my senses. Kicking and punching violently at my blanket, I seized to the floor and bounced still screaming. A familiar chortle penetrated my blind terror.

My face and heart flashed in anger, for there was my mom.  Wriggling herself free from the confines between bed and wall. Nose cherry red, damp fuzzy hair pressed against her forehead with sweat, and cheeks drenched in elated tears.

Emerging onto my bed, breaths heaving, she gasped, “God Sam, I never thought you’d stop dancing! I almost gave up!!!!”

To this day, she attempts zip lines, walks logs, scales rocks, and says phrases like I’ll be right back I just want to try… that sends chills up my aging spine.  She refuses to let time slow the determination she has always had within, and finds new avenues to project her humor by chiding my boys with bet cha can’t, well I can do that,  prove it, and Ooo, let’s get your mom with…

Fortunately for me,  I am a delightful combination of both Granny-Two-Shoes and Carolyn, all while adding my own evolution to the line designed to prey upon the gullible.

Some call it lying.  Some fear mongering. Some mean.

I prefer the hard truth smothered in hyperbole ensuring all kids are kept on their toes… so the ballast never truly tips.

Either way, in times like these when humor is at its wits… I find comfort reflecting on how I inherited mine, and the better Mother it continues to make me.

i have
Created,
and
now
am subject to
Him.

i saw His talent
before
those who clamber.
used my skill
to write His narrative.
molded
His voice into confidence.
and embraced
His effervescent notions
of life,
of purpose,
of possibility.

i fostered
my Creation
and
lost Myself in His world.
i bent My soul to accommodate.
quieted My voice
and slowly diminished
the clarity of
My own
path.

i move
upon
My Creation’s whims.
His dreams.
His hopes.
for they are Mine
too.

endlessly
content
with My creation,
yet,
individually
undeveloped.

now
My next creation,
must be
Me.

This past weekend, I attended a baby shower; a shower I genuinely wanted to attend and not out of obligation.  The hostess had a spread of finger foods and the company of ladies was jovial and filled with pure happiness for the new mother.

As I walked home from the event, I mused over the stories women told about mothering through the decades, and felt tired, fulfilled. Once home, I was greeted with squeals of delight, tears of he took my legos and bust my house, and the rare wonderful occurrence of my husband making his specialty for dinner, curry.

I yearned to disrobe from my skinny jeans, tucked in flowy tank, orange blazer and heels.  I slopped into the bathroom, and there they were lying scrunched on the floor. Pealed from my body from waist to ankles and left in the same smashed heap, ensuring ease of  becoming one again with my skin.  The washed blue called Come, be comfortable.

Awww, my mom jeans.

In an unusual display, I picked them up in my hands and smiled. But as I inspected their color, condition, I realized to my horror, these things were covered in gross!

Down the sides on my right leg, just under the pocket, were faded swipes of red, brown, and white which could only be from the hurried cleaning of my right hand as I made shepherds pie, lasagna, and Alfredo.  On the inside by my knee was a translucent film, most likely from bubble wars, with pink purple and blue bits of lint plastered in from half a dozen loads of laundry.  Both knees were thin and stretched from bending, bending, bending to wipe a nose, pick something up, catch a kid or chastise Bert.  The left leg’s cuff was soiled with ketchup, a mishap from letting Stewie squirt some on his plate, and a dried bogey from who knows where.

But the true measure of disgusting came when I flipped my beloved over.  My bum.  Two round circles of dusty, much darker beige.  Quickly, the week recalled itself in ticking flashbacks of building a stick forest with Wheels, scooting on a dump truck with Stewie, and a failed playground pullover dare from Malcolm, in which I collapsed to the ground because I am old.

I wear these jeans.  Daily.  Everywhere. When was the last time I washed them? A week, two, three? I talk to my kids often about the importance of presenting yourself and first impressions and here I am, wandering town as a shining example of a woman who can keep everyone else in her family put together, except herself!

Glaring at them through ridiculed fingers, I quietly reminisced of what wasn’t written in their filth. There was no stain to prove I held Wheels while he cried about how frustrated writing made him.  No stain to acknowledge my being asked to interview for two jobs. No stark imprint of Malcolm sitting on my lap, showing real progress in reading and his eyes lighting up with pride. And no stain to remark how Stewie, for the first time, asked me to kiss him.

With pierced lips and a nod, I slipped them back on and wore them three more days! These jeans do their job.  They keep me comfortable. They remain soft even when I feel hard. They wrap me in protection when I don’t know the answer to a question and decide to wrestle instead of look it up. They hold their seams and keep it together. As moms, that is all we can ask for. Because from the moment we discover we are now mothers, that is all we can try to do.

I face a problem this day; sitting at this computer, writhing uncomfortably, sneaking peaks at an episode of Downton Abbey that I have seen a dozen times, writing and erasing, writing erasing, yet the unease is all too familiar.  Familiar at every school function, neighborhood get together, dinner party or playground interlude, I struggle to find the confidence to introduce myself due to the inevitable prying question, “So what is it that you do?”

This simple inane question sends my mind spiraling.  Do I go with former teacher or stay at home mom? An uneasy pause follows and the other person furrows their brow asI stammer debating  teacher, mom, teacher, mom.  I have received mixed reviews from either answer.  Say teacher, and you get the “Oh, well, we will always need good teachers” response.  Very patronizing.  Say mom, and you get the “Oh, that’s nice” answer accompanied with the look of “Oh so nothing”.  Thanks.

Now, personally I am very proud to be both.  My time as a high school English teacher in both the general education and alternative settings taught me discipline, the art of breaking down an explanation, and truly humbled my existence. I loved teaching.  The only reason I left was the fact that my sons were babies and sweet.  I spent my days helping teenagers interpret the world and find their voice to communicate effectively, and came home with no patience for my kids.  I saw teenagers hating on their parents, rebelling and I thought “Oh my God, there is only so many years before my boys turn into this!” I wanted to spend their sweet early years with them and was fortunate enough to be able to leave.

I miss it everyday.

Once the decision was made, I threw myself into being a mom to my then 1 and 3 year old boys and at first, despised it. We filled our days with kids gyms, playgrounds, book stores and anything to fill time. I had never felt so under prepared for the onslaught of being a stay at home mom.  Lonely from no adult interactions and drowning in diapers and rashes and whining and whining and whining, I called my mom  600 miles away in Kentucky and cried.  She calmly listened letting me carry on and get it out and then quietly said, ” I know honey… being a mom is terrible, hard. But why are you making it harder on yourself? Why are you giving everything up? You didn’t when you taught.”  I realized I was trying to be too much.  Too perfect. I was killing myself to be their and my husbands everything and had completely chipped away all I held dear for myself.  Over compensating to give myself the justification for being home. Being home went against everything I was coached to be in college, but what I ultimately wanted.   Balance was needed.

My success as a teacher came from being real; being their teacher first friend second, admitting my mistakes, apologizing and moving on, and building on their natural curiosity.  To be successful at home, I had to do the same and find time for myself.  I sat my family down and explained it, and of course, as men are, they were oblivious to my strife but wanted to help.  My oldest boy, then 4, held my hand and said “I love you mommy, do whatever you need, just be home.”

Home I stayed. But now I workout daily to provide sanity and have found a couple more imperfect friends to exchange mom fail tales.  Four more years on, I love being at home and watching them grow, but still struggle finding time for myself, my interests, my goals, my dreams.  Probably as it should be for the time being, but I am slowly finding outlets.

And with that said, I now have a new response to my most nerve wracking bar-b-que question, “I write about life”.  Hopefully, once a week!