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| My mom and her 3 daughters. I’m the cute one on her lap. |
I almost made it through today without someone wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day. But alas, the well wishing came anyway. FYI, I’m not a mother.
You don’t need to wish a single woman with no children a Happy Mother’s Day. It’s just not necessary. It would be like wishing me a Happy Hanukkah. Again, not necessary.
People tell me that since I was a nanny, children’s minister and teacher, I’ve played an important role in the lives of hundreds of children. I know that to be true, but it still doesn’t make me a mother. And that’s okay; really it is.
It would have been wonderful to get married and have a family, but my life went down a different road. Thankfully, I never heard the ticking of the proverbial biological clock. I take that as God’s confirmation that he had other plans for me.
So next year, please don’t feel pressured to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day. You can just smile and say, “Hey, you are looking fabulous today.” And then I can say, “That’s because I don’t have any children.” J
Question: How did you spend Mother’s Day?
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I was playing Kings in the Corner with my parents the other night. It’s a fun little tradition we have and that night it was just the three of us. There is no skill whatsoever involved in this card game. That evening I won 4 hands, Mom 2 and Daddy one. It’s on those nights I say the game may involve some skill. We were having our usual enjoyable time when, after a few hands, I started making a rather obnoxious noise.
Now those of you who know me well can attest to the fact I have a habit of doing such things unconsciously, and quite innocently I might add. Had my sisters or any of my friends been there they would have commented on it the first time I uttered the strange string of sounds. And they most definitely would have put a stop to it had I gone on for too long.
This particular noise was a new one for me and a difficult one to describe. Normally I would just burst into song because of something someone said. Or I’d make a brief sound effect mimicking some racket in the room. But that night it was a strange, throaty chant I kept making over and over again. I have no earthly idea why, so don’t bother asking.
After I few minutes, I finally became aware of what I was doing. I looked up at my parents and they were busily planning their Kings in the Corner strategy. Surely they were hearing this. Daddy is 93 and needs a hearing aid but for heaven’s sake even he should be able to hear my strange gurgling. Mother didn’t even glance up. So of course that challenged me to make the sound even louder and more obnoxiously. Still there was no reaction.
Finally, when I could take it no longer, I asked why I wasn’t irritating them to the point of kicking me out. They had no idea what I was talking about. I then proceeded to make the noise for them. They began laughing, and my sweet mother said, “Oh honey, we started tuning you out years ago. We don’t even notice things like that anymore.”
Parents are a strange and special breed. It takes a certain unconditional love, that’s for sure. Since I never married and had children of my own I often wonder what kind of parent I would have been. Hopefully I would have been the kind that let my daughter win at silly card games and loved her in spite of any annoying quirks.
Question: Any habits you have that others may or may not tolerate?
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I think I am landing on a Monday and Thursday posting schedule. Now that I am actually up and running in the world of blogging I’m having fun. It’s much better than the, “Just do it already,” hanging over my head.
I have been writing music since I was in Junior High. I feel comfortable with that process. I’ve written musical scripts for my students for years and have had great success with directing these productions in school and church. But now that I am attempting to write my thoughts in memoir form I feel very intimidated. So I’m “schooling” myself. I’ve checked out books on the craft of writing from the fabulous Multnomah County Library, registered for writing workshops, devoured my 3 issues of Writer’s Digest Magazine and searched blogs and websites till my progressive lenses have glazed over.
I am finding one of the books I have checked out, OLD FRIEND FROM FAR AWAY by Natalie Goldberg, very helpful. It has hundreds of writing exercises to free your memories deeply buried under layers of life, denial, or maybe just dementia.
One of her assignments was to write for 10 minutes using the phrase, “I Remember.” Here is what I remember…
I remember dusk on Salizar Street in San Diego. The ticking sound of Daddy’s red Valiant as it rounded the corner and entered the driveway announced his arrival home. I remember being so mad at him when he chopped off the two lowest branches on our favorite front yard trees making it difficult to jump up and climb. Tree climbing was my whole life back then.
I remember finding a nickel on the ground and hopping on my pink Schwinn banana seat bike and travelling on my secret mission to the 7-11, left turn/right turn/left/right/left/right/left, to buy a piece of gum from the gumball machine out front. I just knew all the big kids there thought I was neato because I rode my bike all by myself and had money for a treat. After my expensive purchase I immediately rode back home. Once there I couldn’t even enjoy the chewing process for fear I would be found out and get in trouble.
I remember the Hippie rock band rehearsing in their garage down the street. I wondered if they were smoking that marijuana as they did their version of Three Dog Night. I can still see the mom coming out of the front door and shooing us nosey neighborhood kids away. I thought it was weird that those Hippies still lived with their mom.
I loved playing in the parking lot of the church at the end of the block singing the lyrics of Paul Revere and the Raiders at the top of my lungs. I remember the sound of my roller skates against the pavement.
For some reason our family inherited a big 4×4 animal cage and kids from surrounding streets found out about it and came to play. We would pack as many kids as we could inside and then roll them around the yard. It was the most fun ever. I remember how those same strangers kept interrupting our Girl Scout meeting the next day to see if we could come out and play again. I thought we were so cool because of that stupid cage.
Salizar Street; a great place to spend 7 years of my life, or was it 6. Who knows, we were always moving. But that street has more memoires than 10 minutes can hold.
So there you go. Give it a try. Spend 10 minutes reminiscing with an “I remember” story. Let me know what you remember.HoHoHo
