Important Conversations

Last week there was a photo posted on the Humans of NY Instagram of a uniformed woman (EMT?) and he quote was about how hard it is to be a single working mom. The examples she cited: the school play was at 10 AM on a Tuesday. How am I supposed to be at that? Also, the Mother's Day Tea was a Friday afternoon. (Noted: The Father's Day lunch was a Saturday.)

The comments, as usual, were overflowing with "Keep up the good work!"s and tags and emojis and, of course, some haters too. I don't usually write, but I felt compelled to. Sometimes the photo subject finds the account and reads the comments. I wanted her to know! I wrote that I also had a mom who worked (of course, I also had a dad, which was pretty important). Nevertheless, I had a mom who worked, and she couldn't always be there for every little "mom" type thing. She did make it to a lot, which is very impressive. What she couldn't make it for...whatever. So, I wrote my mom has had a long, fruitful career in an interesting field. She has a lot of advice to share with me about education and the workplace in general. She is a valuable resource in my adulthood--not just as my mom, but as my peer. These conversations about her expertise mean much more to me than a conversation we could have about that time she helped make a craft for my Girl Scout troupe. I'm sure there is something very lasting, a foundation, set up from having a parent's presence--some psychological "someone is here for me"--but I think there's something just as lastingly important in growing up knowing my mom was out at work. She had important things to do, and I would do important things too one day.

As a side note, I liked that my dad picked my bowling team up from middle school. I liked that he took me to and from tap class and video taped our dress rehearsals. I liked that he gave me bowls of Rice Krispies and even let me play beauty parlor on him. I believe I am a stronger person and I hold others accountable for their actions based in gender identity because my gender equality education started quite young, quite naturally. Dads can make food, moms can wear suits, whoever is there is there, and today I have two helpful, smart people accessible anytime.

Mum's Day

Been thinkin' a couple nice mom thoughts today. I remembered this lil happening from ten years ago (!) scarcely important, near forgotten.

The spring and summer before I moved to St. Louis--end of my sophomore cusp of my junior high school days, the beginnings of licenses, the end of hanging around with nothing to do but watch Degrassi--I was always with the gruesome twosome Liss and Knoze. The three of us were a weird crew, but there were were.

It didn't even matter who was speaking the words at some point. I was going to summer camp in a month. None of us were quite old enough to have jobs. "Hey, let's hang out." "What should we do?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "I don't know." "Let's just go--"

When someone did have a semblance of desire, it was exciting. On this one summer day in 2004, Lissa really wanted to see Mean Girls. I had my license but couldn't drive more than one passenger until I was 16.5. I asked my mom to take us. She said yes because she wasn't working at the time and generally up for drop-offs. My mom never made me feel bad for driving me places, which I always really appreciated. I got ready. But suddenly Alice Sr. was pale, half-opened eyes.

"I'm just not feeling that well." She said. I made the calls. No on Lissa's mom. No for Knoze. We could walk. It was far. I told my mom we'd go another day. She said, "No, it's really okay." I hadn't heard much about the movie besides the Parent Trap chick was in it, so I truly didn't care. But the lady grabbed her keys and walked carefully to her car. She drove at quarter-speed as to not throw up. The theatre was about ten minutes away. She stayed quiet and we respectfully said thank you. I worried a little, but there was kind of a goldenness to the whole thing. She said she's be fine to pick us up, and I knew she would be.

Mean Girls was an important movie for me to see. I would have seen it another time, I'm sure, but maybe not in theaters, maybe not before my move, maybe not before I needed to hear Cady explain the uselessness of judging a mathlete with a unibrow. Thanks to my mom.

Muver's Day

December 2012.

"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."--Abraham Lincoln

My Favorite Memory of My Mama (It Is That One Holiday After All)

After my freshman year of high school, I went away to camp for seven weeks. Largely, I do not miss things. I was homesick for maybe two minutes of the entire summer.

The second to last night of camp there is this Final Council Fire that...I won't explain because it sounds lame--especially because the culmination of the evening for all ten summers I went to camp was me sobbing over a pile of pine needles. Moving on.

The second to last day of camp, I got this really bad headache. I was packing all my stuff up, and I just felt horrible. Then, it was Beach Period. I asked to be excused, to stay in the cabin packing because I was ill, but I was reminded it was my last chance to enjoy the lake etc. etc. so I begrudgingly shuffled down to the shore. And, boy, a dehydrated teenager + major headache + burning sun + screaming children + sadness about leaving summer camp = Crazy Sickness--edging on hallucinatory.

That night there was a free-for-all cookout type thing, and it's co-ed kind of, and there are parents kindof, and, well, to make a long story short, my counselors and my cabinmates didn't realize I never went to dinner. I didn't realize I didn't go to dinner because I was actually out of my gourd and didn't know where I was, let alone that it was dinnertime. All I knew was that I was throwing up a lot in a bathroom. And, I really didn't know where I was, but my hair was covered in puke, and I was alone, and I remember thinking, "I just really want my mom." And then POOF. Someone was holding my hair back and gently led me to bed! And I was like, "Whoa--is this one of those Divine experiences where I realize that the concept of Mother is universal?" No. It wasn't. It was my real mom.

I was so sick I didn't even think to think that my parents would be coming to the cook-out function, and apparently they got there, and asked a couple people, and quickly realized I wasn't there, and my mom had this sense I was back in camp in the bathroom. So, she went to the bathhouse, and, lo and behold, there I was in all my vomiting glory.

And so I woke up in this very quiet loving atmosphere with my very own mama who I hadn't seen in about fifty days looking so sweetly at me. And I felt completely healed, and I didn't even have to miss the evening's special ceremony.

So, moms can be pretty great.


Mama's Day Dinner today!