Mother's Day...Again?

About three years before the last sib, our adorable redheaded baby brother, arrived.

Happy, sweet Mother’s Day to Mom, my daughter, my daughters-in-love, my sisters-in-love, and to all the other mothers everywhere!

As Mother’s Day rolls around again, I’m offering two previous Mother’s Day posts within this post (metablogging?), because (a) I still mean it all, and (2) with my current stroke-addled brain, I can’t come up with better ways to say these things, and (IV) the original posts include a poem of mine that I would have included (again) in a new post anyway.

Update Addendum: I’m delighted (ridiculously giddy) that by this fall, THREE of our four children will have children of their own. We’re incredibly amazed and proud of the loving, devoted, gentle parents they are/will be, and honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better Mother’s Day present (plus a new tat, a Morkie puppy, and a cabana on a white-sand beach).

So I hope you’ll grab a cup o’ joe and a gluten-free, whole grain bagel with goat cheese, sit back & put your feet up, and enjoy:

http://uncanneryrow.blogspot.com/2010/05/mothers-day-meditations.html

http://uncanneryrow.blogspot.com/2011/05/mother-of-all-days.html

MOTHER by any other name...

My stepson was the first of our four offspring to call and wish me Happy Mother's Day today. That doesn't mean the other kids are naughty, only that the designation "stepson" is misleading - though I'm not his biological mother and neither of us pretend I am, I have worried about him, loved him, gotten in his face, had his back, teased him, and nagged him since he was nine years old, every bit as tenaciously (and as annoyingly) as I did with the other kids. In my book, "mother" is any person (male or female) who will do this stuff for you, whether related by blood, by marriage, or by sheer will. My mom taught me that. So here are a couple of poems for mothers, sons & daughters. Happy Mother's Day.

TRIPTYCH

v Mother/Body

This panel is the Madonna,

whose hands have pared and cut

bitter onion, turnip, carrot,

whatever meat could be found,

have sealed it with salt, water and fire,

have buried day-old kittens,

necks snapped by a restless tomcat,

have peeled back the burnt skin

on a child’s open palm,

handprints brittle and delicate

as silvery flakes of mica,

have scrubbed stains from

a girl’s rose-patterned bedsheets,

have traced invisible, holy signs

on the skin of a man’s back,

have followed the curve

of his muscled hip,

have folded around him in prayer

v Daughter/Mind

This panel is the Magdelene,

who once lifted her foot to step over

a fallen tree branch and stopped

mid-air, caught in a rippled vision

of a tree from which the branch

might have fallen, then the constant

inescapable drip drip dripping

cascade of incessant thought—

a scored, moss-covered trunk,

thick wandering branches,

spreading fan of twigs,

intricate lacework of new growth

suspended in air, tree and not tree,

or  what space there is between,

or the nature of Tree,

her Self at the root—

She, Tree, Air, God

and Water, always Water

v Fire/Spirit

rose petals, sorrow,

mhyrr gum, desire and water

burn clean and constant

ST. DOMINIC

           

patron of choir boys

My sons, three wild choirboys,

have visions too, have wandered

in the fog. They are brilliant,

these boys who catch and sing the sun,

griefless, hysterical, or strangely quiet.

Their high notes burst like sparks

against a dark South Dakota sky.

Their low notes disturb the river’s

calm surface. Teach them to settle

disputes as you did, with relics—

thumbs or long leg bones planted

in a tenuous line of truce, flagline

between their constant thieving

companions, Need and Want.

Bully them always toward

goodness & mercy,

knock them down in the

schoolyard if you have to.

The "Crapshoot Theory" of Parenting

I had the best Mother’s Day ever this year. Mom farm/critter-sat so Ray and I could road-trip to the Black Hills, where we got to hang with my oldest kid and his family. He had a gig at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, a benefit for the Americana Music Festival. He was on the bill with other friends of ours – Boyd Bristow & Kenny Putnam, Hank Harris & Jami Lynn, and others. At the end of Ryan’s set, he announced that he didn’t usually do un-original music, but he wanted to do a song that was a poem by his favorite poet – his mom – he’d set to music. And he said his mom was in the audience, so he’d “better not screw it up.” It was a total surprise to me, so of course, Ray and I both sat there crying like the babies we are. And before the night was through, I also got to sit in on a couple songs, singing with a stage full of jamming musicians. Could I BE any luckier?!?

On the drive back, our youngest son called just to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day – just a cheerful, non-emergency thinking-of-you call. While we were gone, my daughter and her family went out to the farm to spend Mother’s Day with Mom, and when we got back home that night, my daughter’s beautiful, delicious pink champagne cupcakes were waiting for us.

I’d like to take credit for the amazing adults our kids are becoming. I’d like to say I have wise parental advice. But I know the truth: it’s a crapshoot. I learned this important life lesson back when Ray had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery at age 50. He’s a fit, lean, non-smoking, tofu-eating, hard-working man. One evening during his recovery, we were sitting in Ray’s room at the Heart Hospital when a man walked past his door, looking for a friend he meant to visit. The guy was 60-ish, had a belly like a full laundry sack dangling and swaying over his belt, smelled like bad cigars, and – seriously – was eating a cheeseburger. He was strolling around the HH in his devil-may-care oblivion, while Ray had just been cut, probed, stuck, sliced, power-sawed, and cracked open like a walnut. Ray and I looked at each other for a long minute as the guy went by, and that’s when the Crapshoot Theory hit us.

The Crapshoot Theory, as it applies to parenting, accounts for crack moms whose kids grow up to be volunteer dentists with Doctors Without Borders or theoretical physicists whose kids grow up to be serial 7-11 stickup men. We can talk about nurturing, nutrition, good karma, guidance, education and the rest all we want, but there’s simply no clear reason why some kids grow up good, some go astray, and some end up Wall Street grifters.

All I can say about my own parenting is that I did the best I could. I made LOADS of mistakes. I had TONS of help, including my mom and grandmother – the Super Women – and Ray’s patient love, tolerance, and quiet determination (crucial balance to my hyper-parenting style). I was sometimes waaaaay too intense. I was overprotective. Or I was completely in the dark.

I pushed inner stuff over outer stuff. I didn’t drive my kids to get straight A’s, dedicate themselves to sports, or go to church every Sunday. Maybe as a result of this (or planetary alignments, barometric pressure, Universal whim…), none of my kids was interested in college. They’re all artists – in music, with cakes, or on skateboards (maybe I should have drilled in some sort of ‘make a decent living’ lesson…).

Instead, I pushed (nagged, harangued, harped on) my kids to trust in family, love, and peace; to write thank-you cards; to see everyone – even big meanies – as part of the Big Community; to be grateful for the richness of their lives (even back when we were on Food Stamps & living on Kraft macaroni & cheese); and to be aware of others’ suffering. And yes, you should be visualizing me in a peasant blouse and a tiara of daisies right now, with “Get Together” playing in your head. And maybe as a result of this (or more likely the Crapshoot Theory), our kids have all become kind-hearted, affectionate, generous, compassionate human beings. And THAT’S a pretty incredible roll of the dice.

Here's the poem my son set to music...

Old Family Photo

This is the grandmother.

You see how she has dressed

the daughter in dark broadcloth,

eyelet at the sleeves, each fold pressed.

The sons on either side,

smooth and starched,

circles of cropped hair shining,

form the beginning and end of the arch.

You see how the grandfather

looms black and white

above them all, unsmiling,

hands hidden, small eyes glaring, frightened.

The seated grandmother

spreads her flowering hands,

touches them all.

Below the waist, she melts into shadow.

The Mother of All Days

Mother’s Day Shmother’s Day. What about the other 364 days? There’s nothing tricky or particularly noble about springing for a last-minute garden gnome or potted geranium one day a year to thank your mom for…oh, I dunno…willingly pushing your bowling ball head through her own tiny, delicate passageway so she can suffer & toil through the next 20, 30, 40 or more years of this experiment that is your life. Just ask me. I KNOW what I was like as a teen (O lord), and I got my mom a garden statue for Mother’s Day this year…

I’ll try to contain my rant about how women are (as John Lennon suggested more controversially), the slaves of the world. Or how moms who work outside the home are STILL expected (often in unspoken but well-understood language) to also provide the bulk of child rearing, home care, meal planning & prep, laundry & sheet-changing, wifery and other essential services. Or how moms (because they’re typically the primary child care givers) so often bear the brunt of tantrums, ER visits, serious sass, disgusting petrified socks in the back of a closet, broken hearts, and torturous years of brooding teen angst—not to mention frangi-pangi incense and bad electric guitar. Or how Mother’s Day dinner often involves Mom in the kitchen again, sweating through another hot flash, looking for 6” of free counter space amid the piles of dirty dishes she’ll wash later, as she tries to perfectly time your baked lasagna and broccoli au gratin. And then she’d better come to the table smiling, dammit. Yikes…did I say I’d try to contain all that? Silly me.

One of the many things I love about being a midlife woman is that I now have a strange panoramic vision that lets me view at once my children, grandchildren, the Grand Matriarch (my mom), and ghost images of my grandmother. And because I can now clearly see from each of these perspectives what my mom endured, I slam my head against the fridge several times a day in penance. And I’m probably a baaad person for secretly grinning, now that I have grandkids, whenever my children run smack-dab into their own karmic dirty socks.

So this Mother’s Day, I offer a poem for my mom. And EVERY day, I honor the difficulty, sacrifices, power, sorrow and continuing beauty of her life. I offer my gratitude to the Universe that she’s still here, still patiently teaching me (clearly, I have MUCH more to learn). I apologize to her for, well, 1961 through 1985. And I bestow whatever blessings I can on my daughter, my daughter-in-law, my sisters-in-law and my granddaughter—to all mothers and mothers-in-the-making. And for those of you moms expected to cook a Mother’s Day dinner, remember that a boatload of cayenne pepper in the sauce livens up the party, and you won’t be hungry by the time it’s all on the table, anyway…

INVOCATION

If you were any more alive in me, Mother,

my heart would burst, split open

like a ripe peach soaked in holy water.

Whisper from every corner of this clapboard

cathedral, Our Lady of Perpetual Chores,

your small and powerful prayers:

white coral bells

itsy bitsy spider

battle hymn of the republic

Chant caramel pudding and corn casserole

recipes, ancient sacred texts handed down

from your own mother, that dark marble saint

atop the bell tower, one arm wrapped around

a gilded laundry basket, a silver pressure cooker

cradled in the other. Her heart, too, burst open.

Keep me, I ask, in your blessing of trying, failing,

laughing about failure. Grant me the grace

of history, repeated mistakes, and promise.

Look down on me with love when they raise you

to the bell tower, at the way I sing your praises

off-key, from behind my daughter’s stove.