Tossing Glitter… Mom

Mom was my very first girlfriend. And trust me when I say I’ve had A LOT of girlfriends in my 56 years! When people reminisce, they often like to celebrate the past by saying it was a simpler time. The past is easy to sugarcoat once you’ve made it to the other side to the present. There is a Melissa Manchester song I loved in high school called ‘One More Mountain To Climb’. I continue to love that song today. When I listen to those lyrics they somehow, in my mind, represent the extraordinarily complex path my mother and I took to arrive at simple truths. Teasing her, I tell her we both got more than we bargained for with each other.
Memory: Feeling the chrome legs dig deep into the linoleum floor I continued to rock back and forth on the stool. It was a nervous habit, and sitting or standing still was next to impossible for me. A quick glance at my homework spilled across the bar in front of me pulled my attention back into the real world. But just for a second. I stopped rocking long enough to listen as the theme to Gilligan’s Island played from the television on the shelf directly above my head. The divine Ginger Grant was a favorite of mine and I would rack my brain trying to figure out why she packed all those gowns for a three-hour cruise. A cabinet door would suddenly slam shut, and I would be jerked back to my purpose of sitting here in the first place.
Doing my homework also gave me a chance to watch Mom move about the kitchen preparing supper. This was a daily ritual for me, and as she opened the flour tin I took in a deep breath. The kitchen’s accent color of avocado green seemed a perfect backdrop. If I squinted my eyes just so, everything in the room appeared soft focus. I adored soft focus to the point of being obsessed. The beautiful women in the movies I loved were always shot in this magical haze. I felt it was how the world should be seen. Adults often questioned my eyesight as a great deal of my time was spent squinting. Sitting at the breakfast bar provided a view of the entire room. Pulling apart an Oreo cookie before dunking it into my milk, I would bask in the feeling of calm that fell over me. Just Mom and me.
Calm in this house existed only when it was the two of us. She closed the oven door and turned towards me as a smile illuminated her face. It was that time in the afternoon when the sun shoots brightly through the windows, and it poured over her long red orange hair. With milk white skin and sprinkle of freckles, she was beautiful. She was my Mom. Something special existed between Mom and I.
I remember feeling that as far back as I could remember. It always made perfect and unquestionable sense to me. I quickly learned, however, it didn’t always make sense to everyone else. While some boys grow up watching and soaking up all the ways of their fathers, for me it was all about my mother. The way she walked and dressed and brushed her hair. The sound her pumps made on the sidewalk as she rushed to the car on Sunday. Her perfume as it filled the air when she passed by you. The way she studied herself in the mirror while her hands smoothed down the front of her dress. As much as anything, I loved her small beautiful hands. Mom complained her nails refused to grow the length of Ma-Maw’s, though they seemed long and perfect to me. Standing next to her, nose to the kitchen counter I stood silent, I would watch as those small perfect hands worked the dough for her homemade yeast rolls. The smell from the baking bread had quickly filled the room, and as Mom pulled them from the oven, I quietly moved back to my bar stool to watch. Each mound of golden perfection had been inspected by mom’s critical eye as they dropped from the pan. “I should have left them to rise ten more minutes.” Mom always spoke in hushed tones when she baked- as though she were alone. After a few more seconds of silent examination, she would turn towards me with that smile once again flashing across her face. She knew as well as I did that those rolls were perfect.

Sunday mornings at our house were hectic as mom raced us through breakfast. Following her to my room, I watched as she carefully laid out my white shirt, red clip on tie and navy jacket across my bed. My favorite part of Sunday was getting dressed up, and my eyes trailed along a perfect pant crease as it fell over my black buckled shoes. “Eddie did you brush your teeth, top and bottom”? Without being told, my mouth dropped open and I blew out as she leaned her face into mine. Seeming satisfied with her inspection she would take a step back, smile and look at me. I didn’t have to be invisible when it was just the two of us.
Mom called me her “artistic child “ and never seemed ashamed of me. She never acted as though she noticed how different I was from other boys. While other boys talked about basketball or owning their first rifle, I loved to draw and paint and dreamed of wearing black capes and hosting my own variety show. Singing was also a passion, and as afternoons passed sitting on the rusted out tractor under the walnut tree, I would wail my heart out. Straddling the tractor with my hands on my hips, I sang “Half Breed” with such conviction I could practically hear the Indian drum beats echo across the field. Mom’s voice pulled me back to consciousness as she stood at the fence warning me I had five minutes to wrap it up before my father came home from work.

Mom also loved to sing, and we became well known in our local church community as a mother-and-son singing duo. As with her baking, mom critiqued herself mercilessly from rehearsal though show time. But up at the pulpit, she proved herself a winner. We both suffered terrible stage fright and would agonize over our performances to such an extent that you would think our performance was being televised. Standing in front of the congregation, I would glance over at Mom as she nervously squeezed a tissue in her hand. I would feel the perspiration from under my arms and my heart would feel like it was locked in my throat. Then the opening to “Reach Out To Jesus” began playing. As our voices reached out to Jesus my heart would reach out to Mom, and we would lock eyes and she would flash me that smile, and I would feel like it was just Mom and me. Calm… Music… Love… Mom…