This is actually about my mother, again

No one has ever accused me of sloth, but I do not care for housecleaning. I have stated that before but I don’t think anyone could actually understand the degree to which I dislike doing anything that requires wearing rubber gloves. It’s not that my house is inordinately messy or unhealthy, but well, one time I found a small lizard struggling in a spider web that had accumulated under the Victorian table in the front hall. That could have happened in anyone’s house, right? I have excuses, five cats, a more than full time job, the 8 or 9 hours I spend at the gym each week, and well this writing addiction, none of which would have stood up for 10 seconds under my mother’s withering gaze.

Friday I had the day off and I woke with the intent of spending some well deserved time sitting on the sofa writing.  I had an appointment at 11 and then I planned to do a little laundry. After all, this was a decidedly ass kicking work week, and while the wine pairing class at whole food Thursday looked like a great way to relax, the hour and half at the gym after with my daughter was brutal.  When my feet hit the floor at the usual 6:30 Friday morning every muscle in my body was shrieking “WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?”

I was sitting on the sofa with my laptop open, first sentence written, when my daughter burst into the kitchen like a canary just escaped from it’s cage. “Come on and get dressed Mom,” she chirped. “We can go to body pump at 8, then run for an hour, and then do the muscle conditioning class.” I know it’s hard to explain, but the girl has some sort of mesmerism that compels everyone to do her bidding, especially me. Of course she only has my best interest at heart. I explained to her when I put my loaded bar down on floor in front of my bench, “You have added years to my life, but they equal the ones you have taken away.”  I did not have to explain that to her or to anyone who knows her. Thank the lord I had the appointment at 11 or I would have ended up in that freaking muscle conditioning class, passed out on the floor.

When I got home at 2:00 the sofa and the laptop looked so appealing, but the girl was in cleaning mode. She met her boyfriend’s parents last weekend and found out why Marc keeps his house so clean. His mother asked her son if my girl could cook. He told her she was an amazing cook. Then she asked if she cleaned.  Now I’m thinking these were the perfect questions to ask when you’re hiring a maid, but not so much when you are interviewing a possible daughter in law in 2009.  Still, he’s coming this weekend and our house does not pass the white glove test, so the girl has me up on my feet again.  

Finally this morning she has gone to work and I am sitting in my immaculate living room with a cup of coffee and blessed silence. As much as I hate housework, I love a clean house, fresh crisp sheet, the smell of furniture polish, and those little vacuum tracks on the family room rug.  Funny thought, it’s actually a little easier to write when the place is cluttered, guilty pleasure being one of my specialties.

When I was a little girl I came bursting into the house one day with roses from my grandmother’s garden. My mother told me I could not put flowers in the house until it was clean. I immediately pictured the lovely profusion of roses and hydrangeas that were sitting amid the dust and clutter on my grandmother’s dining room table. I think that might have been the minute I decided there was nothing wrong with a house that looked like people lived there, but as much as I hate to admit it, I still don’t put flowers out unless my house is clean. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go buy a bouquet. Have a great weekend. 

I believe I can, uh, bounce on my buns

I had a housemate in the 70’s who went to Fairfield Iowa to learn to fly. It was before the days of the Internet so she never saw the videos of people jumping with their legs crossed, the maharishi equivalent of levitation. She was an odd girl, really odd., but if it had not been for her I would never have met my husband. Her cats used to pee on her bed and she blamed my toddler because she said he traumatized them. She once screamed to my baby, “Benji, cats are people too!” It echoed through the house along with his delighted laughter as he tried to catch the cat’s tail when it raced around the dining room table. I glared at her without a word. “Well, almost,” was her lame ass response.

Good judgment was not Cora’s strong suit. I once flushed her pot down the toilet because she left it on a lawn chair in the back yard. I had only made one request of her when she moved in, no dope in the house. My parents would have declared me an unfit mother in a heartbeat and taken my child away to be reared as a southern Baptist if we had been arrested for drugs. Cora was mad as a wet hen over the loss of a nickel bag but I was unwavering in my principals. Later that summer she pulled up in front of the house on her bicycle with over 50 rolls of toilet paper strapped to her back and the handlebars. It seems she heard a rumor that there was going to be a shortage and she was stocking up. I was never able to explain to her why it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think her summer living on the Navaho Indian reservation with no running water, eating only fried bread and goat meat had permanently altered her prospective on creature comforts.

Cora’s mother was a gem however, a classic Virginia lady, tough as they come, and not afraid to share her opinions on how you should be living your life. I loved her dearly at the same time I found her infuriating. She was the crazy mother I should have grown up with and I was the daughter she wished she had birthed, the one who would have supplied her with grandchildren. A practical woman, she just adopted mine as her own. Once in my frustration about her interference in our lives I told her, “Gertrude, you are like a mother in law to both of us,” meaning my husband and myself. It was such a perfect description of our relationship that we all started laughing, diffusing the annoyance we felt. It became a running joke.

Gertrude moved in with us in 1985. Her alcoholic bipolar husband had finally drunk himself to death and her two daughters were living thousands of miles away. We lasted about six months before we realized the friendship was not going to survive that much togetherness. In the meantime Cora went to India for spiritual enlightenment and then, not finding what she was looking for, moved bag and baggage to Fairfield. That’s where she met and married one of the maharishi’s devotees. Gertrude went to the wedding and described the group as “nice, clean cut lunatics”. Imagine my surprise when she decided to go there to live. I always tried to picture her sitting among the meditating vegetarians on a foam cushion with her cigarette in one hand and a cocktail in the other.

Cora still lives in Fairfield with her husband, no children, her life devoted to meditation. The last time I saw her was when I was uncharacteristically late to her mother’s funeral in 1991. I spoke to Gertrude once in the hospital, right before she died, but the stroke she suffered had taken her voice. My husband told me this week that he used to talk to her late at night. Now he knew she wasn’t really there, but sometimes that’s exactly the kind of friend you need, silent and non-judgmental, like she never was in life. I suppose that’s why I thought of Cora and wondered how the years have treated her. We’re traveling to Iowa this summer for our annual volunteer thing and I think I’m going to try and find her again. I really need to know if she ever learned to fly.

I woke up in love this morning

So enjoy until my husband discovers I posted it and makes me take it down. Oh, there were shoes involved too.

You Say it Best When You Say Nothing At All

So, the phone rings and I pick up to the sound of male static.  A slightly familiar voice asks, “Is Eva there?” Helpful Mom that I am I say,

“Oh Hi Marc, I’ll check.” I hear the thunder of footsteps coming upstairs and suddenly a frantic mime bursts into the living room gesticulating in an obvious “I’m not here” poise. I stare at her and then look at the number on the caller ID. Her acting skills and the absence of Marc’s name in the message window of the land line bring me to the realization that the person I have just spoken to is assuredly not Marc but some love struck male whose ardor is not reciprocated.  I sit frozen with the phone pressed against my chest watching her as she parodies various excuses. That one must be she’s at the gym, and I think that one is washing her hair, and that one, wait, we don’t even have a dog.

Two can play this game and I indicate in sign language that I know how to handle it.  I put the receiver back to my ear, “Oh, I’m sorry, who am I talking to?”

“This is Adam,” says the artificially cheerful voice on the phone.

“Oh, Hi Adam, so nice to hear from you. Let me go downstairs and check on her.” I muffle the phone on my chest again as she dances in front of me with excuses. I have not been the mother of a beautiful daughter all these years for nothing.  I count to 100 and then with that fake smile in my voice I lie to the nice young man who brought my daughter flowers in 10^th grade, got teased for the pairing of their names together (look, it’s Adam and Eva! Giggle giggle), and apparently never got over his first love.

“Adam,” I say to the man who knows I’m lying, “ I checked downstairs and she’s not there (of course that is true because she’s standing right in front of me). She may have gone to the gym. I saw her about an hour ago (again, true).  I know my husband went this evening. I should be there myself, but I was feeling lazy. “ Adam laughs uncomfortably right along with me.  “I’ll have her call you.” Now, it’s not really a lie if both people know it, right?

We say our goodbyes and the girl says to me, “I felt like I was running in a movie slow motion up the steps to tell you not to answer the phone,” There were a few explanation points in her sentence too. It was very well punctuated in fact.

“Maybe you should tell him you’re just not that into him,” I suggest.  She laughs with me at the Sex in the City reference and then she sinks down on the sofa with a sigh. “This has been the most awful day,” says the girl. I know how her day went and she’s right.  We have become unusually close this year, both working for the same company. We talk about the politics of our jobs too much, but we have already agreed that there will be no more shoptalk today.

“Well, It’s going to get better soon. If he calls back I will tell him you’re away for Valentine’s weekend with your new boyfriend.  That should take care of things.”

She takes a minute for regret, for youthful heartaches, for the ones she left behind, but only a minute. “That might be best. I just don’t want to have to explain it to him again.”

I should not be partner in her deception but I know too much not to sympathize. She ran into her high school crush last year, between trains. She was in pain and she clung to him very briefly, cried tears over the recent loss in her life, and then she moved on. She tried to tell him, but he only heard what he wanted to hear.  So here it is, Valentine’s Day upon us with Adam’s heart broken and Eva’s totally mended.

It has been a long time since I was puppy dog in love, but I remember it very well. It tastes like chocolate mixed with rainbow and it is as rare as a total eclipse of the sun. Even though you know the feeling is transient, you want to keep gazing into it until it burns your eyes out with its fury. Sometimes we’re lucky that when the world grows light again and the chickens come down off their perches, the feeling grows into something less exhilarating, but more solid and lasting.  For all of you in any stage of love today consider yourself blessed. For those of you who like Adam are nursing a broken heart on this bittersweet red-letter day, my momentary condolences. I have no advice for you except to remember that reason and love are natural adversaries and it’s a good day to do something stupid. If it doesn’t work out there will still be half price heart shaped boxes of chocolate tomorrow. XOXOXO

Collage

I am having an evening to myself, a marvelous rare indulgence. I should have gone to the gym while my husband sheppards a bill in the general assembly and my daughter works late, but I had a piece of salmon that needed cooking so I decided to come home first. I turned on the oven and popped the pistachio crusted fish from Whole Foods in and went to take off my work clothes. I decided to play Mati Hari with my black silk robe on over my red undies and a nice glass of Petite Shiraz in hand. The salmon was almost done by the time I opened the wine so I put the broccoli in the microwave for a few minutes, then added a bit of mango balsamic dressing to it for extra flavor. I find I love the interchange of delicate flavors, the fish done to perfection, the tang of the dressing, the crunch of the green veg, the lovely warming wine. I am most content to sit on my sofa feeling sexy and in tune with the silence. No TV blares, no chatter, not even music intrudes.

I should read my Sun, but I have no idea how long I am by myself and I want to savor the moment.  It may seem that I am an indulgent woman in general, but when I look back through my day, through my life, I am astounded at how little of my time is actually spent on me. It is better now than it was when the children were little, when every minute was devoted to their needs, but even so I have spoiled my girl and my husband shamelessly. I know those of you who live alone cannot comprehend, but sitting here in the light of a single lamp seems like a small piece of heaven.

My father once took a picture of me posed on the sink cabinet in our master bathroom, the reflection of the back of my head in the mirror, and behind me, a thousand reflections of other Elaines, to infinity and beyond.  It was taken with a Polaroid camera and someone must have coveted it because it is lost to me now except for the memory. I was 26, newly divorced, beautiful as I have ever been in my life with no one to know it except for my father. I wish he had told me I was beautiful because I had no idea. My elder son, who understands and adores women, understands and adores me, told me once that he had found that beautiful women never seem to know there own power. He spent a lot of time amazed that he could not convince them, and finally, giving up on the arguments, quit fearing beauty in women.

I have grown old and it terrifies me, and yet, the ruin of a beautiful woman is still a beautiful woman. A friend told me that age is irrelevant because after a time it is not looks but lifestyle we see in the faces around us. His father died this week, defiant to the end, exactly like my father who died three years ago this week. I tried to comfort him as we all do with ineffectual words. I know there are those of you who are fearful of aging, of dying, and I’m going to say this once and then I will try to be silent on the issue. It is not the dying that counts, but the living. If each of those pictures of me in the mirror were different, if each were a year in my life, I wonder what the last picture would be. I have no death wish today, just curiosity. Today I am flesh and blood and sexy lingerie. I have no promise for tomorrow and neither do you. Carpe Diem.