Woke Sunday morning with her on my mind. Took a few
hours before I tightened in on the fact that while I knew May 17th
was the day my mother was born, and I had already felt that tiny little stab
of, “I wish I wish her a happy birthday in person” it wasn’t until I was safely
tick-tack-ticking prices on a stack of newly arrived Provencal Rose at the shop
that it dawned on me, she would have been 70 this year. Felt my shoulders sink
just before they started bouncing as the first chuckle of the day rumbled from
my tummy up, “Fuck, would she have hated the sound of that”
Pretty sure that my own uptick in years, and the
hormonal wild ride that comes with it, is in part responsible for this
softening of my self-reinforced crunchy outer layer. In part the reason that I
find myself crying at any number of manufactured heart string tugging film, television
show or damn commercial. Part of the reason that I feel the edges of my mouth
bend and sort of stretch in the direction of my ears, something I think some
folks call a smile, when I see a tiny person float in strapped to one of their
parents, little feet dangling…oh if they’re wearing like bity Chucks, Vans or
flower adorned sandals, um, I turn into the village idiot. Puppies, those baby elephant
videos, kitties cuddling, I’ve got people the globe over posting adorable small
animal videos and pictures on my Facebook page, daily, at this point. Not sure
how my uterus drying up (wishful thinking as the bastard is acting more like it
has developed a stutter than actually riding off into the, “I can now go commando
all the damn time” sunset) has made me gushier but it has. That or my jaw is
just getting tired of being ready to take the next blow, but there has been a
very noticeable lack of….ambivalence in my squishy bits as of late.
My mother’s birthday has always been on my radar. It’s
one of those week-and-a-half to two week stints between Mother’s Day and the 20th
of May that are reminders, a day to celebrate moms, her birthday, the last
night I saw her and the anniversary of her death all bunched up like a fist
that all too often hits me square in my gut, and has for nearly 15 years now.
This year, that little chuckle about how displeased she would have been at the
idea of turning 70, (although obviously I think she would have gladly taken
that to the alternative. The one that had her not seeing her daughters married,
her youngest getting her Masters and most beloved grandchild graduate from high
school, and the University of Louisville) brings with it another gentler smile,
one that lets me know that for all the downs, the fights, the emotional cruelty
and hateful rage she threw, she loved us and gave all that she was capable of,
and that fucked up mix made us who we are. This woman I am now.
Maybe it was always less about what she did wrong and
more about how I took it. Not sure, but all those years running, spastically,
from anything resembling the life she led, at times from even thinking about
being her daughter…one of those jobs that made you feel the most loved, and
resented human on the planet, maybe it took nearly 44 years for me to give up
my own dissatisfaction and rage. Maybe it took my writing here and sharing our
story, our stories, that helped me crack at all the crusted over bits and begin
to let my more fragile, un-scared flesh be exposed. (I’m still leaning toward blaming
my sputtering uterus by the way) I know my sister has always hated, or had
issue, with me sharing what our mother was really like. Felt like I was
betraying her, and with her not here to defend herself, although I can’t
imagine how there is ever a defense of seething insults like, “I wouldn’t fuck
you with someone else’s body!” at your daughters because they were dressed up
and going out, like teenage girls do. Like she did. Her choices and
circumstances weren’t mine to make and while I sometimes trumped about the
house wearing her clogs and boots when I was tiny, I never once walked directly
in her shoes. Nor she in mine and somewhere in there I’m finding a little peace
and the missing is less heavy, or saturated with tension. It’s sweeter and that
cream stuff, well it’s rising to the top….
This morning, my day off, I woke and lazily motored
about the apartment. My husband on a rare visitation tapping away at his
keyboard, the sound of the couch wheezing beneath my stretched out frame, the
seducing sound of water trickling across stones coming from the little stream
that runs through our apartment complex, audible over the utter silence of an
empty Monday workday. I took a deeply satisfying breath and a sensory memory
overtook me so strongly I swore I could taste the phantom aroma. A dish my
mother had in her weekly rotation for a couple years, around the time when I
was 9-12 years old. Not the kind of meal I grew up eating but one that made an
impression…even though I can’t seem to recall if I liked it or not, which tells
me it wasn’t a “Most hated” dish.
It was when we were living at my brother’s father’s
house. The Big Ugly Evil I used to call it, the one where we lived over the
garage and my mother was tasked with feeding the transient and ever-changing
stream of sad souls that man would bring trudging through the house. Through
his house, as we were always reminded. I would be in one of the back rooms off
the kitchen, often reading or listening to The Mighty 690 AM radio. I would
hear the Pyrex dish hit the counter, the slithery sound of her knee-high clad
feet as they slid across the linoleum. A twist of the door knob of the pantry,
(to this day I’ve not seen a pantry as big as the one in The Big Ugly Evil.
Used to hide in there and snack on hickory smoked almonds and sliced green bell
peppers that I’d douse with red wine vinegar, black pepper and garlic salt…so
yeah, weird kid) my ears perking up to see if I could make out which of her
weekly creations she was up to. Pantry door closed with a swoosh, me with my
back pressed against the high backed chair that was deemed “too ugly” for his
dining room, therefore perfect for us, knees drawn tight to my chest as I
strained to finish dinner, through sound. Wasn’t until I heard the un-vacuuming
“poink” and the sound of an envelope slapping back and forth, hitting the sides
of my mother’s wrist that the symphony of soon-to-be dinner sang.
The “Poink” sound was from a jar of apricot jam or
jelly, the slapping envelope a packet of Lipton Onion Soup mix, (and why do we
all do that slapping thing?! I still do it on the three or four times a year I
treat myself, yes, I said treat, to some onion dip) she would mix that with a
sploosh of Russian dressing before pouring it over chicken thighs and baking
until brown and bubbling. A cut open bag of Minute Rice would be tossed about
in a bowl with some butter and dinner was served. I am not kidding in the least
when I say I could actually taste that dish when the memory of its smell came
over me this morning. Rather incredible, and very welcome kiss on the forefront
as it were….
“You’ve had a very lucky life” a phrase I hear quite
often from customers as we talk about where I’ve visited, what I’ve tasted and
where I’m going next. Used to bug the shit out of me seeing as I’ve spent a significant
volume of time, and muscle, carrying around this damn baggage all these years.
Lucky?! Charmed?! Easy?! These comments would send a nail through my spine and
that tight jaw I’d been known for, well it would seal beneath pursed lips and
the weight of a heavy brow. Sunday at the shop, just before closing I was
recommending a wine and sharing the story of how sweet the winemaker is, how
charming her home and her parents, the way they found out about my seafood “issue”
and on the spot whipped me up another dish to wash down with their Champagnes.
The words were playing like an orchestra to her ears, her smile encouraging me
to keep playing. That was when her warm grin spread apart and she said, “You’ve
got it pretty good” the words spilling over me like a wave of restorative
freshness “Yes. Yes I do now” my response.
There is no way I could have, or would have, any of
all that I have without the hands that shoved or sweetly led me on this path. The
running, the shielding, the willingness to try anything, these are all gifts
bestowed upon me that have contributed, both good and bad, to the person I am
now and…well for maybe the first time in the nearly 15 years since she passed
away, all I can think to say to my mother is, Thank You.
I’m almost exactly a million miles from being great at
anything but I do seem to have a sliver of talent when it comes to this wine
thing. Could be that titch of oddity that bent me enough to unashamedly speak
up for the wines that created the kind of sensory memory that held enough
intrigue to keep me listening and opening my mouth. To taste and talk more. To
use words that tug at those of us that tromp about in the big splashy puddles
of indulgent pleasure, and to those of us that find something nearly sensual in
restraint and the scraping of the less polished. Wouldn’t be surprised to find
it a sort of envelope packet of all of the above and none of it could have been
possible without the life that brought me here, and the woman that gave all she
had.
She Gave Me
The
Love of Music. Be it an escape, a warm embrace, a
deeply pounding session of fucking that leaves me breathless and like I’ve been
astoundingly felt. Music, the right music, feels like hands caressing and massaging
all of my bits and can evoke memories of exact moments that bounce to life like
I were looking at it like film. I crave it. I fear it. I spent many years
learning how to curve my body to it. Found a whole other life to run to because
I could and there, there I found acceptance that I hadn’t before.
The
Lust for Love. When I was very young, maybe five or six,
my mother had a group of friends that worked with her at La Mesa Porsche Audi.
Mechanics that all worked at the dealership where she was a receptionist. They
did everything together…..like everything, and most of my early memories
involve that group. One member of the clan was a very handsome young man, 19
years old when they all first met, named Matt. He was way hotter than my Fonzie
poster and he was so sweetly attentive to the lonely, shy little girl that
lived just outside the rooms where they drank beers and smoked pot. Matt always
made me feel special and on one day, my birthday I believe, he even picked me
up for a “date” where he took me for a ride in his convertible Porsche, to
lunch and to get professional pictures taken. Never. Never had anything even
remotely that sweet done for me before and to a five or six year old, well this
was clearly a sign of true love. He loved me. I knew it and we were destine to
be married one day. I even wore a dreaded dress for my picture as a promise that
I would also wear one when we got married. Well, as these things often do,
situation didn’t quite work out as my six year old imagination planned. Matt
and I were never married, (dammit) but after schooling a “stand in” date of
his, while she was brushing her long, shinny, twenty year old locks, that she
ought not get too close to him as he was spoken for….well I learned that love
was something I was willing to wait and fight for. That and driving just a
little too fast, it was just my speed….
The
Love of Fancy Cheese. One of the questions I get most often is
how I got into cheese, (for those of you that don’t know, I am also the cheese
specialist at The Wine Country). This too is a legacy of my mother, and her unwillingness
to settle into her, our, situation. Most of my life was spent in varying stages
of broke. Either flat ass with no food, or with certain utilities being sacrificed
as there wasn’t quite enough money to cover. Lived on pancakes for a couple
weeks and to this day I will not eat those bastards. Cheese on the other hand….well
we always seemed to have just enough
for fancy cheese. A tiny wedge of aged Cheddar. A block of rich and nutty
Gouda. Smoldering and stinking triangles of pungent blue. Now unless it was tax
return time we would never have all at one time but outside of the Pancake Era,
there was always some gratifying bit of salty and creamy there in cases of,
much needed. I grew up eating those cheeses like the rare treats they were and
much like learning the sounds of dinner “music” and the flavors of specific
vineyards and the taste of a winemaker’s thumbprint, I remembered them all. The
way sharp Cheddar bit at the sides of my throat and the taunting twist of hand
pulled string cheese as I spun the tiny threads around my tongue, hoping to
extract each ounce of flavor. She used to call me Mouse in fact and part of the
reason was my unabashed love of all things cheesery and also for the way my
nose would go to work when she brought me to a deli counter, twitching and
investigating. Probably another dash of seasoning in that whole envelope of who
I am.
Forgiveness.
Mom,
I wished you a very happy Mother’s Day
Am grateful we spent that last night together, all of
us, celebrating your birthday
I miss you all the time but feel it most this time of
year….
I hope you found a way to be proud of us, and you for
making us the girls we are and for making my son feel like the most loved
person in the world….he is one of the best people I know and you are part of
the reason why.
As a woman of way too many words today I have just
two, they are from the deepest bottom ocean of my heart
Thank
You,
Mouse.
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