Rebel without a cough OR Why Mom Mom is Cool
So I'm still a snotty monster but I've pretty much beaten the cough. Yay! I apologize for being out of the posting loop. Two days, no words from the wise. How sad, how abandoned you must feel. Truth be told it's a combo of things that has kept me absent. First off, a friend of mine decided to "fix" my computer. Now, granted I asked him to do so, it was as sick as I was and even a little slower. But aparently computer people hate Internet Explorer. I didn't know this was a requisite to being a computer person but, so it would seem, it is. You instead have to download a browser called Mozilla Firefox. So here's the rub, my ID to blogger and a variety of other websites are saved in Explorer's memory. Not in Firefox's. So I just couldn't sign on, because I didn't remember my User ID. And the thought of wading through my hotmail INBOX to find it, assuming the email that contains this information still exists, just made me tired. So I didn't post.
But though Brad was tricky and thought he'd hid Explorer from me, I found it. And so until I find the appropriate "Let me onto my webpage you asshole computer!" data, using this sub-par browser will have to suffice. The second thing being that my mom flew into Philly for Mother's Day and I've been busy playing with her instead of my computer. Which leads me onto the meat of today's post:
My mom could beat up your mom.
Not that she would. My mom is pretty Quaker-style when it comes to the whole issue of violence. However, in her younger years she was an amateur body builder. Before, I might add, it was cool for girls to have big muscles. And ran a million miles a day or something. But when she got pregnant with my sister realized that more than 1% body fat was ok too. She also triple majored in Biology, Psychology and Chemistry in college. She was all set to head off to med school when she realized she didn't like sick people. So last minute, against the wishes of most of the people around her, she switched streams and did the pHD in Psych thang instead. Sick people, no no no, but crazy people are aparently a-ok in her book.
She loves gardening and kept my sister and I in fresh vegetables and fruits all through the growing seasons. Our garden is one that is well tended but still looks a little wild. While Angie the Korean neighbor spent hours upon hours arranging peonies in neat little color coded sections, my mom planted flowers in a more big-picture style. When the bird feeder dropped sunflower seeds off the front window ledge and actual sunflowers started to grow she just found a way to incorportate them into the plan. Some days when we'd be out the door to school my mom would stop and just look at her flowers. She'd take a second or two to just look at each one, smell a couple if needed. We'd have to take stock of which ones had flowered recently or which ones she'd have to cut down because they were on their way out. And while I might have been a snotty teen at the time, it's a detail I still treasure about her.
My mother reads bad mystery novels as well as deeply moving prose. She doesn't watch a lot of TV but if a Law and Order Marathon comes on, dum dum, it's criminal justice city. Except that now she's pretty much seen them all. Seasonally, she is seriously and affectively disordered which results in a great love of warm climates and a lot of sitting in the sun in the summer. If you're walking on the darker part of a street with one shady side and one sunny side with my mom, you better be prepared to crossthe road, through oncoming traffic if need be. In the winter she doesn't like to read things that are upsetting so she saves those books for the summer time when she's already in a good enough mood for the heavy stuff. When I did A Delicate Balance in college, an Albee play that wallows heavy in family dysfunction, she came and watched the show. When I asked if she'd come back the next day to see it again she said, "Adrienne, I love you. And if you really want me to, I'll see it again. But I'm a family therapist and I get to deal with depressed people every day."
I love that my mom never witholds her real opinions about things I've worked on she comes to see. If she doesn't like something she won't pretend or lie, but she comes and makes sure I know I'm supported by at least one member of the audience. Because she knows me so well she has this tendency to get to the meat of what's often going on with me within the performance and not just the product for public view. My junior year of college when I directed an original piece semi-based on the theme of accepting the imperfections in loving someone, she cried because while on the one hand she believed some of the things I told her helped me come to the conclusions of the show, she was sad that maybe I'd gotten there too early.
She likes to watch Sundance movies and really just won't watch things that come out at anything with the word Multiplex in it. Except for some reason the movie School of Rock with Jack Black, which we went to together on a semester break and she loved, which I could never quite figure out. But again, it's one of the things I like best about her. My mom ain't letting you pin her down. She's got her generalisms like everyone: she has forgotten her checkbook in the freezer, she likes to call me Schmadrienne and litle furry things schmanimals, and she is constantly refering to objects as "the thing... on the thing... you know, that whatchamajigger... come on, the doo-dad." In fact there is a large piece of furniture in the kitchen that has been permanantly deemed "The Wooden Thing."
But despite that, she's always suprising me. She likes to mix it up. Emotive on one hand, a little bit rock and roll on the other. My mom has always said she'd rather live in a camper at the end of her life, eating the best food, getting to travel to places she's always wanted to see, than to live in a "nice" house with "nice" furniture. She proves by example how important it is to get the experiences in life that make you the person you grow to be and not the things that you ultimately won't and don't need. Which is not to say she totally eschews them, just that they aren't what make you who you are.
She's loved and lost. Shown me that risks are risky. That though they don't always work out they were still worth taking. Maybe even more so. My mom has gambled big in life and has always made sure that no matter whether she won the bet or not, the experience of doing what you know is right, what will make you deeper and live fuller is the real pay off. And I'm trying every day to live by that example.
Someone once called me a "Seize Life Girl": that typically 20-something character in a movie, often played by a Portman or equally fresh-faced all-American type, who typically teaches the people around her to chuck their fear out the window and grab life by the balls. I hated this label for a while because I associated it with the banal movie people who single dimensionally talk about risking pain and heartache for the big payoff. Which inevitably, along with Natalie P's love and support, the non-life seizing guy always got.
The thing I realized though, is that there are people out there who really are risking things, big things, stability and comfort zone related, core-shaking things to try at living their dreams as they are shaped and reshaped with the process of being alive. Susan Mackey is one of those people and because of her I see that it's awesome to be a Seize Life Girl when you're trying to seize some real-world life. She isn't perfect, but she taught me that I don't need to expect her or anyone else to be so. Not everything she might have guessed her life to be has come to pass as she planned it, but she lets me know that there are things that happened instead that she would never, ever, trade for some idea of happiness she had at a some other point. She raised Dale and I with compassion and understanding. With tolerance and love. And at times she did so without a lot of help. And I love her and respect her more than anyone else in the world. She means more to me than anything, more than my at times emotionally unexpressive self has the ability to make sure she's aware of.
I dedicate this day to the original Seize Life Girl, who grew up and became the Seize Life Woman, my mom.
But though Brad was tricky and thought he'd hid Explorer from me, I found it. And so until I find the appropriate "Let me onto my webpage you asshole computer!" data, using this sub-par browser will have to suffice. The second thing being that my mom flew into Philly for Mother's Day and I've been busy playing with her instead of my computer. Which leads me onto the meat of today's post:
My mom could beat up your mom.
Not that she would. My mom is pretty Quaker-style when it comes to the whole issue of violence. However, in her younger years she was an amateur body builder. Before, I might add, it was cool for girls to have big muscles. And ran a million miles a day or something. But when she got pregnant with my sister realized that more than 1% body fat was ok too. She also triple majored in Biology, Psychology and Chemistry in college. She was all set to head off to med school when she realized she didn't like sick people. So last minute, against the wishes of most of the people around her, she switched streams and did the pHD in Psych thang instead. Sick people, no no no, but crazy people are aparently a-ok in her book.
She loves gardening and kept my sister and I in fresh vegetables and fruits all through the growing seasons. Our garden is one that is well tended but still looks a little wild. While Angie the Korean neighbor spent hours upon hours arranging peonies in neat little color coded sections, my mom planted flowers in a more big-picture style. When the bird feeder dropped sunflower seeds off the front window ledge and actual sunflowers started to grow she just found a way to incorportate them into the plan. Some days when we'd be out the door to school my mom would stop and just look at her flowers. She'd take a second or two to just look at each one, smell a couple if needed. We'd have to take stock of which ones had flowered recently or which ones she'd have to cut down because they were on their way out. And while I might have been a snotty teen at the time, it's a detail I still treasure about her.
My mother reads bad mystery novels as well as deeply moving prose. She doesn't watch a lot of TV but if a Law and Order Marathon comes on, dum dum, it's criminal justice city. Except that now she's pretty much seen them all. Seasonally, she is seriously and affectively disordered which results in a great love of warm climates and a lot of sitting in the sun in the summer. If you're walking on the darker part of a street with one shady side and one sunny side with my mom, you better be prepared to crossthe road, through oncoming traffic if need be. In the winter she doesn't like to read things that are upsetting so she saves those books for the summer time when she's already in a good enough mood for the heavy stuff. When I did A Delicate Balance in college, an Albee play that wallows heavy in family dysfunction, she came and watched the show. When I asked if she'd come back the next day to see it again she said, "Adrienne, I love you. And if you really want me to, I'll see it again. But I'm a family therapist and I get to deal with depressed people every day."
I love that my mom never witholds her real opinions about things I've worked on she comes to see. If she doesn't like something she won't pretend or lie, but she comes and makes sure I know I'm supported by at least one member of the audience. Because she knows me so well she has this tendency to get to the meat of what's often going on with me within the performance and not just the product for public view. My junior year of college when I directed an original piece semi-based on the theme of accepting the imperfections in loving someone, she cried because while on the one hand she believed some of the things I told her helped me come to the conclusions of the show, she was sad that maybe I'd gotten there too early.
She likes to watch Sundance movies and really just won't watch things that come out at anything with the word Multiplex in it. Except for some reason the movie School of Rock with Jack Black, which we went to together on a semester break and she loved, which I could never quite figure out. But again, it's one of the things I like best about her. My mom ain't letting you pin her down. She's got her generalisms like everyone: she has forgotten her checkbook in the freezer, she likes to call me Schmadrienne and litle furry things schmanimals, and she is constantly refering to objects as "the thing... on the thing... you know, that whatchamajigger... come on, the doo-dad." In fact there is a large piece of furniture in the kitchen that has been permanantly deemed "The Wooden Thing."
But despite that, she's always suprising me. She likes to mix it up. Emotive on one hand, a little bit rock and roll on the other. My mom has always said she'd rather live in a camper at the end of her life, eating the best food, getting to travel to places she's always wanted to see, than to live in a "nice" house with "nice" furniture. She proves by example how important it is to get the experiences in life that make you the person you grow to be and not the things that you ultimately won't and don't need. Which is not to say she totally eschews them, just that they aren't what make you who you are.
She's loved and lost. Shown me that risks are risky. That though they don't always work out they were still worth taking. Maybe even more so. My mom has gambled big in life and has always made sure that no matter whether she won the bet or not, the experience of doing what you know is right, what will make you deeper and live fuller is the real pay off. And I'm trying every day to live by that example.
Someone once called me a "Seize Life Girl": that typically 20-something character in a movie, often played by a Portman or equally fresh-faced all-American type, who typically teaches the people around her to chuck their fear out the window and grab life by the balls. I hated this label for a while because I associated it with the banal movie people who single dimensionally talk about risking pain and heartache for the big payoff. Which inevitably, along with Natalie P's love and support, the non-life seizing guy always got.
The thing I realized though, is that there are people out there who really are risking things, big things, stability and comfort zone related, core-shaking things to try at living their dreams as they are shaped and reshaped with the process of being alive. Susan Mackey is one of those people and because of her I see that it's awesome to be a Seize Life Girl when you're trying to seize some real-world life. She isn't perfect, but she taught me that I don't need to expect her or anyone else to be so. Not everything she might have guessed her life to be has come to pass as she planned it, but she lets me know that there are things that happened instead that she would never, ever, trade for some idea of happiness she had at a some other point. She raised Dale and I with compassion and understanding. With tolerance and love. And at times she did so without a lot of help. And I love her and respect her more than anyone else in the world. She means more to me than anything, more than my at times emotionally unexpressive self has the ability to make sure she's aware of.
I dedicate this day to the original Seize Life Girl, who grew up and became the Seize Life Woman, my mom.
posted by A at 5:30 PM
1 Comments:
I enjoyed your post. It made me think of my mother. She's a simple woman, and does nothing but love my father. She has amazing hands, and a huge heart. When I talk to her, she gets excited and repeats herself. I don't say anything about it. I just let her talk, becuase it makes her happy.
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