As evidence I present my mother’s lipsticks.
Posts Tagged ‘mom’
We like what we like
Friday, August 27th, 2010Saturday in Snowflake
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
I spend Saturday driving to Snowflake with my mom’s two best friends. Ann shows up with large vanilla lattes for everyone already sitting in the cup holders of her Dodge Challenger. Nelda has little bundles of lavender for each of us picked from her garden. We have a really nice day together — visiting the cemetery, having lunch, a little antique shopping.
For lunch we head to a restaurant called Trapper’s, which is a bit of a tradition. The restaurant has a not-meant-to-be-hilarious section of the menu called “Light Eaters”. The choices are Chicken Fried Steak, Grilled Ham Steak, BBQ Beef, Boneless Chop, Chicken Strips, etc. There’s not really anything light about them. Plus the meals come with a choice of potato, roll, soup or salad. But, the menu says, the meat portion of these meals is approximately half. Thank god, we joke, we need to save room for slices of pie with ice-cream.
We talk about a lot of things driving down the highway, and it’s not like this little story has any big significance or anything, but I keep thinking about it. Ann says your mom was driving herself to a doctor’s appointment in Flagstaff in the winter. She was by herself, of course. And as she’s driving she notices a god-awful smell in the car. She can barely stand it. This is horrendous she thinks. She takes out her cell phone to call my dad who is on an eastbound train in the opposite direction to tell him that he has got to do something about this. He has to figure out what the heck is causing this horrible smell. Finally she gets to her doctor’s appointment but as she’s waiting there she starts to smell that smell again. Only then does she realize she has dog shit on the bottom of her shoe and she starts cracking up. She tries to hide her shoes in a corner when the nurse takes her back into the examination room. It was cold outside, but when heaters on the floorboard of the car hit the dog poo it warmed it up and sent the aroma wafting through the car, getting stronger and stronger. We all laugh. It’s funny because my mom was fastidious. It’s funny because her first instinct is to chew out my father rather than check her shoes. It’s funny because this is the kind of situation she found very amusing.
Back at my dad’s house, there are 80 pairs of my mom’s shoes lying on top of the bed. Each pair sealed inside a Ziploc bag. I pick up a jaunty, nautical looking pair and try to squeeze my foot inside, but my mom’s feet were more petite than mine and I feel like the ugly stepsister trying to wedge her foot into the glass slipper. I seal them back up in the plastic bag. It’s not lost on me, that I don’t fit in my mother’s shoes.
Take it easy
Sunday, April 25th, 2010
As I was driving to work my Aunt Jan called to say she had just scored two free tickets to see the Eagles and did I want to go? Well . . . shit. What could I do? I would pretty much follow Aunt Jan to the ends of the Earth if she needed me to. I’m feeling worn-out lately but I don’t want to be the girl who turns down free concert tickets, even if it is the Eagles. Or maybe, especially, because it is the Eagles.
I mean it’s no secret that my hometown is Winslow, AZ — as in “Standing on a corner in Winslow, AZ”.
“Oh god. The Eagles,” says my friend Amy, “you must really never want to hear them again after growing up in a town with at least one store that plays that song on a continuous loop”.
That song would be “Take It Easy”.
Standin’ on a Corner in Winslow, Arizona.
Such a fine sight to see.
It’s a girl my lord, in a flatbed Ford,
slowing down to take a look at me
For a while, this was years ago, I was contemplating getting a horseshoe tattoo with the word Winslow written in fancy script inside the bend. I wanted the ink-work to look like tooled leather. Like a western belt that has a cowboy’s name squarely stated on his backside, like “Chad” or “Justin” or “Clayton”. I felt that strongly about my hometown’s hooks in me.
Winslow doesn’t have a lot to crow about, but we try to make the most of it. Which is why the townspeople have taken that one lyrical mention and carved out a whole cottage industry.
In downtown Winslow a “Standin’ (there is no g) on the Corner Park” was built in the early 90’s. Complete with a painted mural of a girl in a flatbed ford and a bronze statue of a man with a guitar standing on the corner.
And every September the town celebrates a Standin’ on the Corner Festival. It’s a two-day music festival culminating on Saturday night with the performance of an Eagles cover band, Hotel California.
There are food vendors, beer, music and lots and lots of dust. The town is packed.
The summer my mom passed away she had arranged for the extended family to take a cruise together in Alaska. One of the more memorable stories of the whole trip involves my Uncle Tom, his sister (my Aunt Jan), and Liam getting drunk together and troubling some poor piano player in the bar to play “Take it Easy”. When the piano player did play the song, Tom announced in a loud voice to the entire ship’s casino, “That’s us. We’re from Winslow!” Which has become a sort of mantra for us all.
Anyway, all of this should explain why this concert with Aunt Jan is not to be missed. Turns out, we have good seats and as the show gets under way Aunt Jan reaches over to give me a hug and I think, “This is the closest I will get to hugging my mom again”. Aunt Jan’s body feels familiar, similar.
When the band starts playing “Hotel California” I am transported. I am 6, maybe 7 years old, and I am cruising through the bright desert with my mother on our way to New Mexico. She is wearing Famolare sandals and big sunglasses, which she considered very chic. I have on knee-high socks with sandals. She is singing this song and we are cruising through the desert and it is just the two of us.
My Aunt Jan is a natural cheerleader. She whoops and cheers at T-ball games or ballet recitals louder than anyone. When any one of us graduates high school or scores a goal it is Aunt Jan who we will hear. She is the kind of woman who sticks four-fingers in her mouth when she whistles.
That night there were plenty of whistles from my seat-mate. The Eagles sang for three and a half hours and we had to wait until the encore to get our moment. As the band re-took the stage and began to sing “Take it Easy” it was our moment to say, “That’s us. We’re from Winslow”.
The Pocket
Monday, February 8th, 2010
Fred is my godfather, but he and I didn’t meet until I was 27 years old when I moved to the Bay Area.
This week I attended the funeral of Fred’s mother, 96-year old Carlanthe Turner at the Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Chandler, AZ.
Liam, my dad, and me walked into the church and scooted into a pew near the back. From where I was sitting I could see the back of Fred’s head. And I can’t tell you how a small-thing like that — seeing the back of Fred’s head — filled me with such positivity and happiness.
The church was small but packed; a pew a few rows in front prominently filled with old women all wearing white dresses and white hats.
When Fred was growing up he was the youngest of seven children. His father was a farmer and then later a cotton contractor. He hired crews and paid them for the number of rows they chopped. Growing up, Fred’s father would take a handful of bills and put them in a coat pocket. Whenever the kids needed money for something they would ‘go to the pocket’. You don’t like what your older sister is making for dinner – go to the pocket. Want some candy from the drugstore – go to the pocket.
When my first marriage hastily ended and I needed a place to go, it was Fred’s door that I walked through.
For a time, I lived with Fred in his house in the Oakland hills. He made it ok to rebuild my life. Through sharing his household and drinking many glasses of wine, he gave me a pocket — a compartment of space to regroup. Need to heal – go to the pocket. Need a place to grow – go to the pocket.
The eulogy given by Pastor T. E. Wiggins was around the theme; It’s a Matter of Time. Be ambitious with our time here and prepare for our own going home. There are no goodbyes in Heaven, said Pastor Wiggins, just See-you-in-a-whiles.
Pastor Wiggins said, “She had a sense of humor. But I don’t know if she was funny.”
I think of a story Fred tells. One time, not so long ago, Mother Turner already in her 90’s was attending church. Her hearing was not what it used to be. As she is leaving the Pastor says to her, “Mother Turner I like your hat.” Mother Turner is testy and indignant. She tells her family that Pastor got fresh with her. She thought he said, “Want to get me some of that”. Fred said, “Well Mamma if that’s what you want, just go ahead”.
And of course Fred losing his mother makes me think about losing mine. About mother loss — how I wish I could pick up the phone and tell my mom about Mother Turner.
There is a Jim Croce song, “Operator” that I remember my mother playing over and over. She was about twenty-five and beautiful and it reminds me of lying in bed with her in the middle of the afternoon, being a very small child and pretending to take a nap. The chorus goes:
Isn’t that the way they say it goes
But let’s forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell them I’m fine and to show
I’ve overcome the blow
I’ve learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
But that’s not the way it feels
More about “Mother” Turner here.
love, loss, and what we ate
Friday, January 29th, 2010Last week I got to spend time with Robrt Pela while he made Italian Wedding Soup. It was uncharacteristically rainy in Phoenix and moody and our conversation rambled across many topics: family, memory, marriage, the loss of treasured family recipes.
We also talked about his mother’s cookbooks. Lovingly annotated and with hand written notes to herself, they were actually three ring binders, some retrieved from her kids. “My brother’s math binder with some girls name written in a heart.”
And of course, all of this brings to mind my mother working for weeks (despite feeling really lousy) on three-ring binder cookbooks that she gave to my brother and me, and a few cousins, in the last year of her life. She wrote “This is a collection of some of my favorite recipes. I have collected them from family, friends, magazines, and recipe books. I hope you enjoy having them. I love you. Mom.”
I can’t tell you how valuable this cookbook is to me now. I’m so glad to have it.
Here is my piece on Robrt.
