Tag Archives: Mother

Where Carryings-on could Lead to Carrion

Posted on by
18

digital illustrationSaturday Night Study Group

Lo, the lazy morning passes,

Finds the weary lads and lasses

Still abed, or on their asses,

Half awake and half a-snore,

‘Mid detritus of the pizza,

Hot wings, chips and other treats a

Sober student seldom eats, a-

Strewn in heaps upon the floor–

Partied late; what was it for?

Shattering the blissful quiet

Suddenly, a loud impiety

Is screamed and starts a riot

Right among the corpse-like corps:

All a-scramble, grabbing trousers,

Shirts and shoes, these late carousers

Start remembering the wowsers

Of the night they’d passed before,

Though recall was rather poor–

Finally, wakening more fully,

One of them, if somewhat dully,

Crawled across, his brain still woolly,

To fling wide the knocked-on door

And reveal the dawning horror

Come to waken every snorer,

Standing, looking faintly, more or

Less, like someone seen before–

Somehow shook him to the core–

Ay! It’s Mother stands there staring,

Arms akimbo, nostrils flaring,

Challenging his story, daring

Him amain: Explain this war!

What’s this wreckage, who these bodies

Strewn among the butts and toddies,

Some dressed only in their naughties,

Covered all in festive gore?

He stood gawping, nothing more.

In the cursèd silence stretching,

From a distance came a retching

Sound and instantly, all fetching

Up as though a manticore

Chased them out of their reclining,

They responded to this shining

Call and left the poor repining

Lad, with Mother, at the door,

Beast and trembling matador.

Dust now settling, son and mother

Gazed intently on each other,

Understood this bit of bother

Must be rectified, the score

Evened out: this was the chore.

Mother, calm now and quite cool,

Explains to him that, while in school,

Her son shall still observe the rule

Of sober thought. The lad’s encore:

Will I party? Nevermore!

(And means well, just as before.)digital illustration

Amazing but True

Posted on by
10

Some years ago on this very date there was a shift in the universe. It wasn’t exactly an unexpected one, in the sense that it had been foreseen for about nine months, but surely its full grandeur could not have been predicted. And not everyone on earth knew right away what a wonder had occurred, because the wild and wonderful event in question was the birth of my third sister.

digital painting from a photoWhile she was, like the others–I can’t speak for Big Sister‘s first two years except upon having studied pictures of her effortlessly spectacular adorableness before my own appearance in this plane of existence–charming, pretty and charismatic from the start, there was no way of knowing in advance just how fabulous she would prove to be. That’s the thing about siblings: they are inherently outliers to our frame of reference until their influence on our lives appears in real time. And like our two other sisters, the youngest was her own brand of greatness from the start.

What we quickly learned was that she had a uniquely clever and witty point of view and was rather fearless about besting her trio of big sisters in many a moment simply by sitting back and watching our various adventures, figuring out where we might have gone a bit astray with them, and powering on ahead when her turn came. This was perhaps most evident to the rest of us when she would check in with our parents on whether a particular action of any of ours that seemed just a little outrageous was in fact worthy of our getting in trouble over, and if not, then couldn’t she do it, too? [I am not entirely certain that she wasn’t occasionally disappointed when we weren’t in trouble for the activity in question, but that’s a topic for another day.]

And Little Sister wasn’t very old at all when some wise guy quizzed all of us girls on our life’s plans. What did we intend to be or do when we grew up? Undoubtedly he was looking for some nice, pat conventional answer like Teacher or Nurse or some superlative man’s nice little wife, but my littlest sister’s response was unhesitatingly ‘Amazing but true!’ We did not quite grasp at the time that this was indeed both a plan and a vocation, but by cracky, she turned out to have gotten it exactly right. In all of the years since, she has been and done many things, accomplished a tremendous amount, continued to be charming and beautiful and charismatic, and absolutely has embodied a life’s saga that despite being utterly Amazing is still entirely True. We can all vouch for both aspects.photo

She has been, in various turns, an outstanding student, a fine violinist, and an intrepid traveler; all three of my sisters studied and/or worked overseas at college age, and this youngest met and married our superlative brother-in-law while doing so and has now lived longer in Norway than she did in the US. She speaks Norwegian not just like a good student of the language or even like a person whose lineage encouraged her to hone it to refinement but like a native-born speaker, which prompted one of her nephews in his youth to proclaim her the Smartest Sister in our family. Since I happen to think each of my sisters the Smartest One as well as the Most Fabulous (and if you can’t do that kind of math, refer back to my post on Auntie Ingeborg’s science of favorites) I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment. My sister has been an administrator, translator, friend, daughter, wife and mother, and much more. She has navigated the waters of an adventure-filled life with both nerve and verve and I still marvel at her excellence every day.

So, on this anniversary of that auspicious occasion whereon she first graced us with her presence, I can say as I always have and always will that her arrival completed the set of our family in ways that we could never have expected or would have dared to wish, and filled any empty spaces, even where we didn’t know they’d existed, with a rare form of love and happiness. I thank her for this gift of herself. And I wish for her many, many more years of being as Amazing as ever!photo

Perfectly Imperfect in Every Way

Posted on by
20

In a comment on my gardening post last week, Ted reminded me of the inimitable Mary Poppins, and I was in turn moved to recollect her frank self-description as ‘Practically Perfect in Every Way‘. In the case of that charming fictional character, it was simply and inarguably the truth. The rest of us, mere mortals, can’t quite go that far if we’re honest.

mixed media

Saints Cury, Cecilia & Goar. I selected these for portraiture in this modern-medievalist piece because of very earthly interests: Cury is one of my birthday saints and famed mainly for his 'miraculous' hospitality; Cecilia is the patron of musicians (for my husband, of course) and even sometimes purported to be the inventor of the pipe organ; Goar's feast day is celebrated on our anniversary and he, sometimes portrayed as a potter, was thus also an artist. He also happens to have a lovely little town on the Rhine named after him. There *can* be perks to being a saint, even a minor one, apparently . . .

Which is why I like saints. It’s doubtful I’d really enjoy meeting them in person, to be precise: it’s the nature, the character of them, that really fascinates me. Because, as I understand it, what separates the saints from the rest of us ordinary slouches is not that they were born or made saints but that they became saints by rising above the ordinary way they began. Unlike superheroes and the majority of fairytale protagonists, it’s not often a transformation that’s accomplished by the wave of a wand or inadvertent exposure to radioactive substances, but rather is brought about by internal change and will and choice.

There is hope for me in the idea that most saints–and I gather this is true of the heroines and heroes of many significant belief systems, along with many of the major religions–start out as plain, simple, unimpressive and very mortal humans and for one reason or another are moved to do the things they do that gradually re-shape them into extraordinary beings. Some of those avatars, indeed, start out as pretty sketchy characters, if not outright jerks, despots, and other first-rank varieties of meanies. It’s the process, the journey, and the ultimate commitment to do and be something else that makes them extraordinary.

mixed media

Saint Monica could be the perfect example of overcoming obstacles--much of her sainthood was earned just through working to see that her ne'er-do-well son shaped up, the outstanding troublemaker who eventually reformed enough to become himself Saint Augustine of Hippo. Apparently her efforts did not go unrewarded . . .

Chances are beyond-excellent that I will never become a saint of any sort. But the real hope and inspiration in the lives of heroes, saints and exemplars is that nearly all of them began their lives as someone or something far less extraordinary than the way they ended them, and if so there’s always a possibility that with a little thoughtful effort I might actually improve along the way too. Don’t hold your breath, but I might just turn out slightly better than expected. Apparently, miracles do happen.

mixed media

Saints Valery (a French abbot) and Finian (an Irish bishop)--hereafter known as the Feastie Boys since they're also among my birthday saints. They remind me as well that one can come from different places, times, backgrounds and any number of unique circumstances and rise beyond them all to distinctive heights . . .

Mothering Sunday

Posted on by
33
photo

So there we were with a couple of bashful vergers posted with their baskets full of lovely handmade nosegays meant to recognize mothers, whether present among us or not. This is the pretty little presentation the Bishop's wife kindly took out and handed to me to honor my two mothers and their mothers, too, as well I would.

If you have any affiliation with things or persons British, you likely know that today is Mothering Sunday. As the Bishop informed the attendees this morning at the Anglican parish where my husband choir-conducts, it matters not that there is an American counterpart holiday–by the time that President Woodrow Wilson got around to declaring such a thing official in 1914, this congregation had already been celebrating Mothering Sunday for a good 35 years thanks to its British roots, and Texas-located or not, they sure as shootin’ weren’t going to stop recognizing mothers on this official day right along with the president’s little add-on festivity.

Anglophilic as I am, I’m hardly one to balk at keeping the faith with the old holiday myself, whether for stubbornness’ sake or for tradition, or for the beautiful British-ness of it all–though it originated as a Christian holiday, surprisingly, falling on the Sunday when one of the traditional texts began with a paean to Jerusalem, the ‘mother of us all’. But better than that, I happen to think that there are excellent reasons for celebrating mothers and motherhood as often and as publicly and resolutely as possible–two supremely excellent reasons to begin with: Elisabeth, who gave birth to me, and Joyce, who gave birth to my husband. I have two of the best mothers in the whole wide world. You can look it up; in any sensible encyclopedia or dictionary it will have a picture of the two of them in the entry explicating the heart and soul of the concept known as ‘Mom‘.

photo       photoYou could be forgiven if you thought from the accompanying photos of them that they had their work cut out for them with these two little melancholy looking shrimps of theirs but I assure you we, and our respective siblings, were all a supernal joy to raise from first to last. Okay, that part is pure baloney and bilge-water–but the point of course is how outstanding our moms were at mothering, and that part is utterly true. We were and are two incredibly fortunate humans, and we know it. No amount of roses and posies could possibly reflect the full spectrum of gifts that Joyce and Elisabeth have brought to both of our lives. But a sweet little nosegay with a brilliant deep pink rose is hardly amiss in the attempt.photoI made my own little corsage, of course, as a drawing of exotic (i.e., nonexistent inventions representing) flowers, because mere effusions in prose can never say how deeply grateful I am to have two such dear and devoted mothers to love. I am particularly and acutely aware of this when both, who have had their own adventures of survival and not just in spouse-training and child-raising over the years, are currently recovering from surgeries. Nothing like having one’s mom undergo surgery, especially as both are doing, surgeries that are not their first, to remind us of how fragile life and wholeness can be and how desperately we hope for our chance of having them back ‘better than new’ and with long and healthy and happy years ahead of them. The signs are good, despite the inevitable miseries of recovering bit by bit, with the expected setbacks, that our hopes will be fulfilled. The only medicine I can offer is love, and that I do send them in unspeakable abundance, but since my mother had spinal surgery I’m pretty sure a big hug is not the most desired form of cure even if I were 2000 miles closer to her, and since my other mom is probably still bandaged up here and there a bit herself, the same 2000 miles nearer-my-mom-to-thee might just prove a little too abrasive as well. So from this safe distance I send e-hugs, ethereal kisses and two-dimensional bouquets and eagerly hope to see both of our mothers springing with good health in June.

graphite drawing

I wish and hope that both of our beloved mothers will last even longer than a little drawing of a bouquet can before it fades like live flowers.

If you are a mother yourself–biologically or by adoption–or act as a nurturer and sheltering presence for anyone, I wish you endless bouquets as well. Without all of you, none of us would be here. Literally, of course. But in the wider sense, we owe an immense debt to the caregiving and protective and human-betterment instincts so often attributed to mothers and grandmothers and godmothers and aunts, and rightly so, but also gracefully and beautifully practiced by teachers and community builders and cooks and nurses and companions and shelter-builders of every age and nature who have the desire to make the world better for those who might not be able to make it sufficiently so for themselves. Thank you. Especially you, Elisabeth and Joyce. You are treasures beyond invention. I can think of no higher aspiration than that others should take their example from you.photo

A Bit of Illumination

Posted on by
25

photoAll it should take is a small glimpse of the undesirable alternatives to remind me, if I’m ever so forgetful, of how fortunate I am.

This morning I had many such reminders on the Sunday commute. It’s been very rainy, a generally fine thing given its kindly relief of and recovery from last year’s drought, but of course never quite so gentle to travelers on the road. As we leave fairly early Sunday mornings to head south, and last night was the semi-annual celebration of tiresome Spring clock-changing, it was utterly dark when we got underway. Unfortunately, and quite predictably really, the first substantial appearance of light before us was not dawn (a grey and undifferentiated one, to be sure) but a veritable wall of red taillights as we came upon the first roadblock. It turned out to be a literal one: a five-car smashup that closed the entire freeway for nearly twenty minutes yet after our arrival on the scene until we were all able to squeeze past it and all of its companion emergency vehicles on the shoulder of the road and restart our journey.

But as much as I dislike sitting still in traffic on the road, I spent the time not just watching the taillights ahead–at least, when engines were turned back on–for any sign of movement but also contemplating how much I appreciated not being just those few minutes earlier when we’d likely have been caught in the midst of the pileup, and all the more so when we saw those crumpled cars and trucks, the flashing emergency lights, the officials in their uniforms scurrying to aid and comfort those still on the scene, and the debris strewn across three lanes and more. It was no surprise to see remnants of at least two more accidents, these not blocking traffic on our side of the freeway but also evidently serious enough to require tow trucks, aid cars and police, before we got to our destination. At every point, a good chance to send up silent wishes for the welfare of all who suffered or served at those points of departure from the planned sojourn of the day.

My little forays for annual medical updates in the last couple of weeks were another fine mnemonic, if I needed one, for how blessed my life is. There I sit, potentially fidgety as I wait for an appointment that, like many, is delayed by overbooking and under-staffing, no matter how well the good folk at my doctor’s office generally try to plan, and look around at people who are obviously less well and far more needy than I am and think, my life is so easy. And I came out of all of it with pretty cheering news.

I was most acutely aware of this, as I said the other day, because while I was just getting a pretty basic exam and gentle inquisition updating my physician’s information about my habits, health and happiness, my mother was lying on an operating table with her spine sliced open for nearly seven hours while her surgeons worked to correct and stabilize her spine. I am incredibly glad to tell you that the preliminary reports following her surgery are good: her doctors are satisfied that they did all of the good things they could do for her (including returning yet a bit more of the five or so inches of height she’d lost over the last several years of her back’s deterioration), and despite the inevitably terrible post-surgical pain, she actually stood upright a mere twenty-four hours after the operation. At that, the second surgery in two weeks, which in my estimation is the equivalent of her being run over by the same freight train twice in a row. The road ahead to full recovery, whatever that will be, is bound to be long and arduous–but it appears to be an open road, and one she is alive and able to take, after some years of wondering whether anything good lay ahead.

Mom is a much tougher character than most people would ever guess.

And once more, I am humbled to look at all that she’s been through and think how glad I am that I have never suffered like that, and that I have a doctor who, when I told him that Mama was ‘under the knife’ for spine repairs at the moment of my simple wellness exam with him, had no hesitation in saying that yes, maybe at 51 and with a mother in that situation, I should get his referral for a bone density check now. To know that my own struggles, whatever they seem to be in the moment, are tiny and petty in the relative scheme of things and that I am very happy to live in such a brightly illuminated place of grace and good hope.photo

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and words about Mom’s health progress. I know she will appreciate it immensely when she’s well enough to sit up comfortably surfing a blog–or doing pretty much anything besides just working on healing. For now, it’s a comfort to the rest of us, and a perfect reminder that I have a great life.

The Kids are So Much Better than “Alright”

Posted on by
4
blue-themed animals digital collage

Surrounded by magical beings . . .

I’m just going to come out of the nerd closet and say, before anybody pounces on me, that I put “alright” in [actual, not the dreaded air-] quotes because, while I may like taking advantage of the musical and/or filmic references of today’s post title, I still live in the camp that says “alright” is not a real word. I am happy to muck about in very sloppy and neologistic nattering when it suits me, but “alright” gives me the same creeps as hearing otherwise very intelligent people say “noo-kyoo-lurr” and “litticher”. I am perfectly capable of making typos and thinking sloppy and inaccurate thoughts, yes I most decidedly am, but I really prefer to make my linguistic slips and slithers purposefully, or at least with an entertainingly Freudian twist.

But jeepers! That isn’t even my topic today, so correct my English if you wish but meanwhile follow me hither to the intended point of this post, if you please.

What I lay thinking about before and after last night’s sleep was how wildly improbable it is for a willingly childless person to live surrounded by fabulous children that, in turn, evolve into astonishingly great human beings and adults and even parents of their own fabulous children. Improbable, but true, and incredibly satisfying. And without the high quotidian costs inherent in direct parenting!

I’ve gotten to participate, and in my tiny way, to assist with the survival through youth that a few favorite students of mine aced during my couple of decades in the trenches of higher education. I’ve been a joyful beneficiary of sharing in the lives of some stellar kids parented by our many dear friends. Best of all, I get to haul out the brag book and coo over a single-and-singular niece and nine amazing nephews, all ten of them people I’m proud to have even met, never mind my being able to claim any affiliation with them. This is not to say that I am an exemplary teacher or mega-cool friend-of-Mom-and-Dad’s, and certainly not that I am remotely  like a Super Auntie. That honorific remains firmly lettered on the diadems of my own aunts and of my three sisters, who have much more polished skills and talents when it comes to that. And clearly, having chosen to keep my child nurturing to the second remove, I will never claim to be a mother, a form of sainthood and heroism I will always admire in its best iterations (i.e., my own mother and child-raising sisters and their rarefied company) but without wishing to emulate. I bow to them all in genuine homage and gratitude.

Me, I just got seriously lucky. And I’m aware of it, so sincerest Thanks all ’round!

What I get out of this uneven bargain is a starry firmament of uniquely beautiful human beings over whom I can marvel constantly and in whose shade I am pleased to rest. Our niece and nephews are, to a person, charming and wise and clever and kind and, oh, outlandishly good-looking, too. Handy that not only our brother and sisters but the terrific partners they chose are all such good genetic and parental material, eh? Among the next generation are scholars and athletes, policy wonks and writers, chefs, nurses, technology experts and outdoorsmen, teachers, artists, musicians, gardeners, and not surprisingly I suppose, wonderful parents, aunts and uncles as well. Yes, being as ancient as I am, I now have three fabulous great-nieces and one stupendous great-nephew (apparently the skew is changing). So the undeserved flow of familial greatness continues to sail me along on my merry way.

The great reassurance in all of this is that no matter how messy and inexplicable and dark the world in general may look at times, there are these bright lights shining through it all, bringing the frustrations and complications into a calmer and more graceful perspective, and moving it forward sweetly into the next generation. And the next after that. With art and expertise and muscle and good medicine, with hope and hilarity in magnificently large doses. Youth may be ephemeral in and of itself, but the gifts of youth are potent, persuasive and pervasive. That’s a mighty fine thing, and I for one am immensely grateful to see this at work in those near and very dear to me.