“Do you know anyone who needs a coat?” my mother asked as she lifted the plastic bag to reveal her 20 year old green car coat.
“Why don’t you just put it in the Good Will clothing drop?” I asked, but I knew that would never happen. That would be the equivalent of telling her to throw the coat away. My mother doesn’t throw her things away, she bequeaths them to others.
“Ask Liz if she wants it. I’ll be on death’s door before I can fit into this coat again,” she said. “I love this coat and I want someone I know to have it.” I took the coat and she handed me another bag with two sweaters in it. “Give her these, too. What a shame, such beautiful sweaters, but they don’t fit anymore.”
It wouldn’t be so bad if my mother just gave her things away and forgot about them, but she can’t let go of the bond she forms with her things. Her attachment is very personal. She wants to know how her relinquished items are doing, long after she gives them away.
When my dad purchased a new player piano he gave me their 20 year old piano that he had promised me several years earlier. Then we acquired the 25 year old couch when they bought a new one, and later we got their 30 year old dining room set. We kept the couch for about five years then decided to put it out for trash. We had to make room for the love seat that – you guessed it – my mother was getting rid of and offering to us.
“You can’t put that couch on the curb!” my mother exclaimed, “That’s a perfectly good couch. Ask around; I’m sure you can find someone who needs a good couch.” When we finally found a relative who needed a couch, my mother was thrilled. A few weeks later, at mom's Sunday dinner table, my brother told the funny story about the couch cushion that flew off while his brother-in-law was transporting it at 60 mph on the Long Island Expressway. As we were all laughing it up, I turned and saw the sad tragic look on my mother’s face. “It’s no use,” she said, “when it comes too easy, you don’t appreciate it.”
Ten years later, when I purchased a new dining room set, I gave the old table back to her because I couldn’t find anyone to pass it on to. The table is still in her basement. It is scratched and warped, but mom hasn’t given up on gifting it forward. “Someone your father knows came to look at the table and they said they wanted it,” she told me recently, “but they never came back to pick it up. What a shame; such a nice table. You can put it on the curb some day when we're gone and you sell the house."
Being a member of the Greatest Generation and a survivor of the Great Depression, I can understand my mother’s frugality and prudence. Money didn’t come easy when she was growing up, starting a family, raising children. She reminds me that things like credit cards, medical insurance and equity loans did not exist when she and my father were raising a family. If they wanted something it took years to save up the cash for it.
So if my mother gives you something, even if the thing is twenty years old when you get it, she is also transferring to you all the accumulated memories of what she gave up to save for this thing: all the years of denying herself that new coat, the vacation not taken, the home made dinners of macaroni and beans, the mended clothing, the resoled shoes. When you take a piece of furniture or used clothing from my mother, you had better be prepared to remain devoted to it forever or find a new owner for it when you are done with it, but never ever tell her that you just got sick of it and left it out at the curb on trash day.
She has the same devotion with the gifts she gives. If she spends her good money on something she expects it to last forever, and, likewise, you should keep it forever.
One day, she dropped in unexpectedly on a Saturday afternoon, while my husband was painting the living room ceiling. I followed her eyes as they dropped down to the living room floor where the white bedspread she had given us twelve years earlier for my wedding shower gift was being used as a drop cloth. She became absolutely still and was stunned into silence for a few moments.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
A cool, “Nothing.”
Twenty years later, while working on a quilt for my son, my mother and I were having tea and discussing some concerns I had. “What if his new wife doesn’t like the colors or the design of the quilt and it sits on the shelf in the closet? What if she doesn’t appreciate the years of hard work it took me to finish this masterpiece by hand?”
“Nonsense,” she assured me, “she will love it!”
“What if the cats rip it to shreds with their claws?” I continued. “What if he has breakfast in bed and gets coffee stains on it? What if…”
“…he uses it for a drop cloth?” she finished my sentence and silently sipped her tea.
Did I tell you my mother is also very tactful and will wait a lifetime to drop a bomb like that to drive her point home. Needless to say, I’m still traumatized to think that, as many a philosopher has said: to think a thought is to put it into motion. What if…a drop cloth?! It has been six years so far and I still can’t bring myself to finish the quilt and hand it over to him. So now I’m worse than my mother. At least she gives her things away.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
How I Lost My Underwear
Did I ever tell you about the time my underwear fell off while I was walking home from school? I remember it so well every year at this time, like an anniversary that resurrects all the vividness of the day: a slight chill in the air, the falling leaves, my pounding heart and panic at the thought of my underwear falling off in public.
I was only in the eighth grade in 1965-66 and we were required to wear skirts or dresses to school. Pants would not be allowed in our public school until my senior year in 1969-1970. If I was wearing pants that day, my underwear wouldn’t have fallen down and there wouldn’t be a story to tell.
I didn’t know I had a problem until I started walking home that October afternoon. About five minutes into the walk, I felt a very subtle, but definite ping at my waist. Had the elastic on my underwear just snapped? I wasn’t quite sure, but they definitely felt looser. Within seconds I knew, with every step I took, the underwear were falling ever so slightly to the rhythm of my walk. I slowed my steps and pressed my books to my stomach to hold them up in place around my bellybutton, but I had a real problem because I had no way to hold up the back piece of flapping cotton which was sliding down my rear. I couldn’t get a good grip through my jacket and I could feel them inching further and further down my hips.
I was walking on the main street leading out from school. It was a busy road with buses and cars packed with seniors leaving for the day. All I wanted today was to find a tree that I could duck behind to shimmy my panties up. Some boys were walking a few feet behind me; I could hear their conversation getting louder as they approached. The undies were falling steadily with every step I took and were already about halfway down my ass. I had to do something to stop their downward slide so I spread my legs wide and did a sort of hoola-hoop shimmy followed by a duck-waddle step. The guys behind me burst out laughing like two hyenas and continued to turn their heads to watch my hoola-hoop-waddle as they passed me by.
My face was burning hot; I could feel my heart pounding under my coat. I stood still in place for a moment, legs spread wide to hold up the drooping drawers, until the two guys were out of sight. I stood firmly in that stance and twisted my torso around to scan in front and behind me. I was in luck, at last, with no traffic and no other walkers in sight, I had a window of opportunity that would only last a few seconds. I reached inside my coat and grabbed the outside of my skirt at the top of my thigh where the underwear had been stopped by my quick thinking spread eagle stance. I felt the tip of the underwear and yanked it high. The other side of the undies fell loose and dangled free down my other thigh. My skirt hem was uneven, at this point, with one side hanging down to my knees and the other side halfway up my thigh, but I didn’t care; I wasn’t letting go of that elastic.
Thinking back today, I don’t know why I didn’t just let the darn things fall right there on the sidewalk and continue walking without looking back. I guess panic got the better of my common sense because all I could think about was the gas station on the corner. If I could just make it to the gas station and get into the ladies’ room, perhaps I could tie the underwear up in a knot somehow, just to get me home. Then I would ask my mother to sew them up and put on a new piece of elastic. What logic is this? I can’t even answer that today, but at thirteen years old, the thought of walking home with no underwear on was horrifying.
I was taking my time, taking no chances, walking in tiny baby steps like a Chinese woman with bound feet. I couldn’t risk walking faster and losing my tenuous grip on the minuscule piece of elastic that was already stretching and slipping out of my sweaty fingers. By the grace of God I made it to the gas station, grabbed the ladies’ room key off the wall, and waddled into the grungy bathroom.
Without thinking, I pushed the door shut with both hands, and felt something whoosh down my legs. I looked down to see my underwear nestled between my shoes. I couldn’t move for a few minutes. I just stared down at that formless cotton heap on the dirty bathroom floor and started crying and laughing at the same time. I picked them up with two fingers and threw them in the garbage pail. And that was that. I continued my walk home from school with my jacket open and the cool breeze blowing up my skirt.
I never told my mother what happened until many, many years later. Why? Who knows. It was such a frightening experience, it took me years to find the humor in the whole incident. And then it just popped up in a conversation one day about the high price of underwear. I briefly commented that, “I had better buy some new underwear before they fall off – again.” Now, I recount the story fondly just to think that, at one point in my life, I was slim enough that my underwear could actually fall down with no encumbrance.
I was only in the eighth grade in 1965-66 and we were required to wear skirts or dresses to school. Pants would not be allowed in our public school until my senior year in 1969-1970. If I was wearing pants that day, my underwear wouldn’t have fallen down and there wouldn’t be a story to tell.
I didn’t know I had a problem until I started walking home that October afternoon. About five minutes into the walk, I felt a very subtle, but definite ping at my waist. Had the elastic on my underwear just snapped? I wasn’t quite sure, but they definitely felt looser. Within seconds I knew, with every step I took, the underwear were falling ever so slightly to the rhythm of my walk. I slowed my steps and pressed my books to my stomach to hold them up in place around my bellybutton, but I had a real problem because I had no way to hold up the back piece of flapping cotton which was sliding down my rear. I couldn’t get a good grip through my jacket and I could feel them inching further and further down my hips.
I was walking on the main street leading out from school. It was a busy road with buses and cars packed with seniors leaving for the day. All I wanted today was to find a tree that I could duck behind to shimmy my panties up. Some boys were walking a few feet behind me; I could hear their conversation getting louder as they approached. The undies were falling steadily with every step I took and were already about halfway down my ass. I had to do something to stop their downward slide so I spread my legs wide and did a sort of hoola-hoop shimmy followed by a duck-waddle step. The guys behind me burst out laughing like two hyenas and continued to turn their heads to watch my hoola-hoop-waddle as they passed me by.
My face was burning hot; I could feel my heart pounding under my coat. I stood still in place for a moment, legs spread wide to hold up the drooping drawers, until the two guys were out of sight. I stood firmly in that stance and twisted my torso around to scan in front and behind me. I was in luck, at last, with no traffic and no other walkers in sight, I had a window of opportunity that would only last a few seconds. I reached inside my coat and grabbed the outside of my skirt at the top of my thigh where the underwear had been stopped by my quick thinking spread eagle stance. I felt the tip of the underwear and yanked it high. The other side of the undies fell loose and dangled free down my other thigh. My skirt hem was uneven, at this point, with one side hanging down to my knees and the other side halfway up my thigh, but I didn’t care; I wasn’t letting go of that elastic.
Thinking back today, I don’t know why I didn’t just let the darn things fall right there on the sidewalk and continue walking without looking back. I guess panic got the better of my common sense because all I could think about was the gas station on the corner. If I could just make it to the gas station and get into the ladies’ room, perhaps I could tie the underwear up in a knot somehow, just to get me home. Then I would ask my mother to sew them up and put on a new piece of elastic. What logic is this? I can’t even answer that today, but at thirteen years old, the thought of walking home with no underwear on was horrifying.
I was taking my time, taking no chances, walking in tiny baby steps like a Chinese woman with bound feet. I couldn’t risk walking faster and losing my tenuous grip on the minuscule piece of elastic that was already stretching and slipping out of my sweaty fingers. By the grace of God I made it to the gas station, grabbed the ladies’ room key off the wall, and waddled into the grungy bathroom.
Without thinking, I pushed the door shut with both hands, and felt something whoosh down my legs. I looked down to see my underwear nestled between my shoes. I couldn’t move for a few minutes. I just stared down at that formless cotton heap on the dirty bathroom floor and started crying and laughing at the same time. I picked them up with two fingers and threw them in the garbage pail. And that was that. I continued my walk home from school with my jacket open and the cool breeze blowing up my skirt.
I never told my mother what happened until many, many years later. Why? Who knows. It was such a frightening experience, it took me years to find the humor in the whole incident. And then it just popped up in a conversation one day about the high price of underwear. I briefly commented that, “I had better buy some new underwear before they fall off – again.” Now, I recount the story fondly just to think that, at one point in my life, I was slim enough that my underwear could actually fall down with no encumbrance.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Quiet, Please!
I remember a time when you had to whisper in a doctor’s office, when the loudest sound you heard in the waiting room was the sound of a page turning in a magazine. Even the nurse wore rubber soles.
Go to any doctor’s office today and you will hear a cacophony of noise blasting out from radios and televisions. There is no peace anywhere anymore. We are tuned in, plugged in, tied in, turned on, hooked up, physically and mentally connected to audio and visual stimuli every moment of the day and night.
Remember muzak? That dull lull was boring, but I’ll take that any day over TV ads in the waiting room like the one about penile erectile dysfunction. I would rather hear a numbing rendition of Moon River than the violent poetics of rap music or songs with lyrics like: “I kissed a girl and I think I liked it.”
I can remember, as a child, waiting in the doctor’s office one day with my mother and my grandmother. My grandmother entered the office with white knuckles clutching her little black handbag and soon found comfort from another nervous old woman waiting to see the doctor. As the two spoke in their native Italian, I could see the tension leave their faces. By the time she was called in to see the doctor, my grandmother was smiling and telling my mother about Anna's late husband who came from my grandmother's village in Catania. "Humph," she added, "I have more grandchildren than she does."
The TV in the waiting room today has set up barriers to intimacy and friendly exchange between patients. Look around at the faces in any waiting room. No one smiles or nods when you enter the room. No one makes eye contact. No one speaks. It’s a drug, I tell you, all this noise and mindless visual stimuli, and I’m afraid that most people are already addicted. I have often reached up the wall to turn off the TV switch or lower the radio volume in a waiting room only to be met with icy stares from the waiting zombies.
Sometimes, when we are driving in the car, I like to be quiet: no radio, just the sound of the rubber meeting the road and the wind blowing through the windows. My son can’t sit in the car in silence longer than 10 minutes without asking, “Doesn’t the radio work in this car? Put something on, will you?”
My dentist recently updated his office. Each dental seat now has a flat screen TV inches away from your face. I ask to have it turned off when the dentist is working on me, because I’ve caught him pausing and glancing at the screen while he is supposed to be working on my mouth. The hygienist was disappointed one day as I asked her to turn off the TV when her soap opera was on. “Are you sure?” she asked me several times before she finally got the answer she wanted. After all, I want to keep the hygienist happy while she's holding that plaque removing hook in her hands.
Go to any doctor’s office today and you will hear a cacophony of noise blasting out from radios and televisions. There is no peace anywhere anymore. We are tuned in, plugged in, tied in, turned on, hooked up, physically and mentally connected to audio and visual stimuli every moment of the day and night.
Remember muzak? That dull lull was boring, but I’ll take that any day over TV ads in the waiting room like the one about penile erectile dysfunction. I would rather hear a numbing rendition of Moon River than the violent poetics of rap music or songs with lyrics like: “I kissed a girl and I think I liked it.”
I can remember, as a child, waiting in the doctor’s office one day with my mother and my grandmother. My grandmother entered the office with white knuckles clutching her little black handbag and soon found comfort from another nervous old woman waiting to see the doctor. As the two spoke in their native Italian, I could see the tension leave their faces. By the time she was called in to see the doctor, my grandmother was smiling and telling my mother about Anna's late husband who came from my grandmother's village in Catania. "Humph," she added, "I have more grandchildren than she does."
The TV in the waiting room today has set up barriers to intimacy and friendly exchange between patients. Look around at the faces in any waiting room. No one smiles or nods when you enter the room. No one makes eye contact. No one speaks. It’s a drug, I tell you, all this noise and mindless visual stimuli, and I’m afraid that most people are already addicted. I have often reached up the wall to turn off the TV switch or lower the radio volume in a waiting room only to be met with icy stares from the waiting zombies.
Sometimes, when we are driving in the car, I like to be quiet: no radio, just the sound of the rubber meeting the road and the wind blowing through the windows. My son can’t sit in the car in silence longer than 10 minutes without asking, “Doesn’t the radio work in this car? Put something on, will you?”
My dentist recently updated his office. Each dental seat now has a flat screen TV inches away from your face. I ask to have it turned off when the dentist is working on me, because I’ve caught him pausing and glancing at the screen while he is supposed to be working on my mouth. The hygienist was disappointed one day as I asked her to turn off the TV when her soap opera was on. “Are you sure?” she asked me several times before she finally got the answer she wanted. After all, I want to keep the hygienist happy while she's holding that plaque removing hook in her hands.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Leave Me Unconnected
Is it a sign of aging that I just don’t want to be so connected to everyone? I don’t want a page on Facebook. I don’t want to Twitter my every thought. I don’t want to walk around with that clunky earpiece so I can take phone calls every waking hour. I’m just not that important, and come to think of it, neither is anyone else I know.
Walk around any major city today and all you will see is the top of people’s heads because almost everyone is walking with their heads down interacting with some tech device. What could be so important? Am I really missing something here?
I’ve tried Twitter. I think I made two entries before I realized I had nothing to say to that nagging question, “What are you doing now?” I felt pressured to lie and make something up. Who cares if I’m working at my desk or doing laundry or reading a good book? Unless you are making first hand discoveries on a new planet, who really cares about your mundane day to day moments? Some days, I bore myself. Why share it with others?
I tried Facebook last week. I signed up at 3:00 PM and went out to my niece’s birthday party at 4:00 PM. Within that hour, everyone at the party who was “connected” knew I had signed up and welcomed me as their friend in Facebook. When I returned home at 8:00 PM, I had about thirty messages from other people asking if they could be my friend. Only one or two of those people were already my friends, and the others, well, I wish they had never found me.
I started reading the inane comments on my Facebook wall and responded with an assortment of verbal replies that I will sum up nicely here in two words: Who cares?! I saw my future and it wasn’t pretty. Was I going to come home from work and waste hours responding to my Facebook friends instead of donning my apron and cooking the evening meal, something I really enjoy?
Cooking is a sensual experience for me. I relish the colors and textures and scents of the foods. I unwind and clear my head of the day’s tensions as I chop vegetables and meditate. I sing and whistle to my parakeet as he jumps around his cage, pokes his bell and answers me with real tweets.
And when my husband walks through the door, the smell of a home cooked meal makes him smile – a real smile – not a colon followed by a parentheses. We sit down to dinner and have a real conversation – not a 140 word limited electronic quip. I let him concentrate on his work during the day, but when he’s home, he had better twitter my fancy and concentrate on me.
Call me old fashioned, but some technologies are not worth keeping up with. My real friends know who they are. And all those other “friends” will remain unconnected. And that’s just the way I like it.
Walk around any major city today and all you will see is the top of people’s heads because almost everyone is walking with their heads down interacting with some tech device. What could be so important? Am I really missing something here?
I’ve tried Twitter. I think I made two entries before I realized I had nothing to say to that nagging question, “What are you doing now?” I felt pressured to lie and make something up. Who cares if I’m working at my desk or doing laundry or reading a good book? Unless you are making first hand discoveries on a new planet, who really cares about your mundane day to day moments? Some days, I bore myself. Why share it with others?
I tried Facebook last week. I signed up at 3:00 PM and went out to my niece’s birthday party at 4:00 PM. Within that hour, everyone at the party who was “connected” knew I had signed up and welcomed me as their friend in Facebook. When I returned home at 8:00 PM, I had about thirty messages from other people asking if they could be my friend. Only one or two of those people were already my friends, and the others, well, I wish they had never found me.
I started reading the inane comments on my Facebook wall and responded with an assortment of verbal replies that I will sum up nicely here in two words: Who cares?! I saw my future and it wasn’t pretty. Was I going to come home from work and waste hours responding to my Facebook friends instead of donning my apron and cooking the evening meal, something I really enjoy?
Cooking is a sensual experience for me. I relish the colors and textures and scents of the foods. I unwind and clear my head of the day’s tensions as I chop vegetables and meditate. I sing and whistle to my parakeet as he jumps around his cage, pokes his bell and answers me with real tweets.
And when my husband walks through the door, the smell of a home cooked meal makes him smile – a real smile – not a colon followed by a parentheses. We sit down to dinner and have a real conversation – not a 140 word limited electronic quip. I let him concentrate on his work during the day, but when he’s home, he had better twitter my fancy and concentrate on me.
Call me old fashioned, but some technologies are not worth keeping up with. My real friends know who they are. And all those other “friends” will remain unconnected. And that’s just the way I like it.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Anonymous Women
I have a journal that I write in that has quotes by famous women on each page. Here is a quote by the English writer, Doris Lessing:
"...And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It is a positive thing. You can move about, unnoticed and invisible."
This one struck me as especially poignant, as I have experienced this phenomenon in my own personal life.
It happened slowly, over time. A decision to let my hair go grey, allowing a few extra pounds to creep up and remain where they settled, a slight shrinking of the spine, and suddenly one day I woke up and I just didn't feel like myself. I thought I looked alright, for my age, until I saw an old photo of myself and wondered, "What happened to me?"
This morning I scared myself when I lifted my face up from the sink and said to the reflection looking back at me, "Who the hell are you?!" I try not to look too closely in the morning until I get the makeup on, then I try to smile at the face looking back at me because I know attitude counts for more than looks. And if I've learned anything from my transitions through the ages it is that, to be truly happy, you've got to get over yourself. You must one day acknowledge that you are not the center of the universe.
In a way, this aging process is a wonderful phenomenon because, as the quote says, "you become anonymous. No one notices you." There is true freedom in that, especially for women. As I observed riding home on the LIRR last night, whenever a pretty young woman walked down the aisle to exit the train, men would lift their heads and stare at her. While waiting for the doors to open, the woman would cast her eyes down, shift her weight, move her purse from one arm to another - all visible signs of her discomfort and awareness of the eyes on her.
I was that woman in my younger days. The cat calls from men driving by in trucks, whistles from men on the street, jeers in Spanish, were not pleasant compliments; they were demeaning and frightening. When I was young, this kind of attention from men would make me so uncomfortable and fearful, I would break out in a sweat. Now the only sweating I do around men is when my own body breaks out in a hot flash.
And as I begin stripping the layers of clothing off to cool down, no one is looking at my overweight midriff or my flabby arms. Yes, it truly is a positive thing - this aging. Being anonymous is not such a bad thing. As Doris Lessing put is so well: at last, "You can move about, unnoticed and invisible. You achieve a wonderful freedom."
"...And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It is a positive thing. You can move about, unnoticed and invisible."
This one struck me as especially poignant, as I have experienced this phenomenon in my own personal life.
It happened slowly, over time. A decision to let my hair go grey, allowing a few extra pounds to creep up and remain where they settled, a slight shrinking of the spine, and suddenly one day I woke up and I just didn't feel like myself. I thought I looked alright, for my age, until I saw an old photo of myself and wondered, "What happened to me?"
This morning I scared myself when I lifted my face up from the sink and said to the reflection looking back at me, "Who the hell are you?!" I try not to look too closely in the morning until I get the makeup on, then I try to smile at the face looking back at me because I know attitude counts for more than looks. And if I've learned anything from my transitions through the ages it is that, to be truly happy, you've got to get over yourself. You must one day acknowledge that you are not the center of the universe.
In a way, this aging process is a wonderful phenomenon because, as the quote says, "you become anonymous. No one notices you." There is true freedom in that, especially for women. As I observed riding home on the LIRR last night, whenever a pretty young woman walked down the aisle to exit the train, men would lift their heads and stare at her. While waiting for the doors to open, the woman would cast her eyes down, shift her weight, move her purse from one arm to another - all visible signs of her discomfort and awareness of the eyes on her.
I was that woman in my younger days. The cat calls from men driving by in trucks, whistles from men on the street, jeers in Spanish, were not pleasant compliments; they were demeaning and frightening. When I was young, this kind of attention from men would make me so uncomfortable and fearful, I would break out in a sweat. Now the only sweating I do around men is when my own body breaks out in a hot flash.
And as I begin stripping the layers of clothing off to cool down, no one is looking at my overweight midriff or my flabby arms. Yes, it truly is a positive thing - this aging. Being anonymous is not such a bad thing. As Doris Lessing put is so well: at last, "You can move about, unnoticed and invisible. You achieve a wonderful freedom."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
