Mom & Me Journals Histories: 1999 - 2001

    The idea of being alive and purposely detached (versus the detachment my mother is going through, which is autonomic)...

    My mother just awoke from her "morning" nap. She spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom (I believe that is her 'wake-up chamber'), so much that I stopped by the door and asked her, "Is everything all right?" She was fine.
    She emerged to tell me that she had just been thinking of "...this old friend of mine, Doris, well, it's Lassegaard, now. I just got a letter from her. In it she talked about her mother's boyfriend. Now, Doris is my age; can you imagine how old her mother is? And, she has a boyfriend?"
    Sometimes I go with it. Today is one of those days when I'm too focused to go with it. Just for fun I say, "Well, you're right, that would have to be one of the oldest women in the world. I think you're probably talking about a letter you received many years ago [in fact I vaguely remember when she got the letter because she told me about it; I was living at 48th and Roosevelt, so it had to be in the late 70s].
    "No, I just got this letter a few days ago. I'll go get it."
    She disappeared into the dinette. I heard her shuffle through papers. In a few minutes she returned to the living room and sat in her rocking chair. She started leafing through her tabloids. I know she'd forgotten about Doris, the letter, the curiosity. I am relieved because I know I would have argued with her about whether Doris is still alive, let alone her mother or her mother's boyfriend.
    A few minutes later she turns back to me (I'm on the computer) and says, "I was just thinking about this old friend of mine, Doris, Lassegaard, I believe, and her mother. Her mother has to be at least 20 years older than me, and she's got a boyfriend."
    I have another chance to decide how I really want to play this out. Old age doesn't just forgive the old. It forgives everyone.

    This afternoon after my mother's hair appointment, we went to lunch.
    She is chomping her way through a burger that looks like something else, I'm drinking coffee and watching her gaze around the restaurant and out the window. This is going to be a long luncheon. One benefit to being a little to the side now, though, is that I experience long fits of indifference which would have normally bothered me but now seem like standing under a waterfall of a temperature somewhat chillier than this late, hot summer day. I'm watching her eat, watching her gaze, listening to her comments, all of which begin, "Have you ever noticed..." In my background I hear my father's accusatory voice tell her she is "like a cow". At the time I originally overheard this I imagined that it hurt her, I remember hurting for her. Now, though, I'm seeing that she is very cow-like, very placid. I've known her to be excited and/or excitable only a few times in either of our lives. I also see why this irritated my father, why he considered it a fault. I then remember overhearing him accusing her of not enjoying "giving [him] head" and calling her a "damn prude". This was many years into their marriage after they'd relocated stateside and bought the farm in Texas. I was visiting over a holiday. I remember thinking at the time, every time I've accidentally spied them having sex or arguing about sex it has always been over a holiday or vacation. Examining her at the table this afternoon, I see that she probably is prudish, not much given to sexual expression and how this must have driven my father crazy. He was a sensually expressive man. I think he was also faithful because he was loyal and a person of honor but I'm quite sure it just about killed him. I also know he was smitten with her when he met her. He ordered his squadron, all of whom were assigned to her sighting classes, that she was hands-off, he was going to marry her. He did. She has also told me she was a snob and hung out with snobs. She has a log-like memory of their courtship. He supplied all the emotional detail. I don't think, upon whatever levels of insight each of them were capable, that either regretted their marriage but I think it was certainly much different for both than they imagined it would be, in part, I realized this afternoon, because my mother is, indeed, a cow, and a prude as well, and my father, well, she never provided me with adjectives for him. She is much too genteel, much too placid for that.
    He drank himself into a grave at 68. She is still alive and still interested in being alive.

    Why did I think a holiday would actually be a holiday? I got nothing done today, every place was closed and I watched a bad movie, besides.
    I've noticed I feel as though I am living one long, long day. I'm also forgetting to feed the cats, although if I'm in one long, long day then it's not time to feed them, yet. Typically they are free-fed but yesterday Mom finally noticed their plate was completely clean and their water needed changing. She did both. They seem to be staying close by. Everyone is concerned that I'm not petting them enough.
    As well, I've been eating ginger this and ginger that. I've even got some mango/ginger tea in which I've been soaking gingersnaps. Ginger coffee should be good. I might try that in the morning. I'm not sure what the ginger is all about.

...even though Mom chose not to go anywhere with me (it's those kitties; they keep telling her "stories" about what I do when I'm "gone", like petting dogs, and such). Let's see if we can't get something out this week to all interested parties (and those parties that haven't invited us).