Facing the Mirror

I think about that old mirror often.

It was, at least, five feet long, and two feet high at it’s tallest point, which featured painstakingly carved intricate flowers and filigree. Two wooden slats divided the glass into three separate mirrors, and, long ago, someone had burnished the wooden frame golden.

I came upon it while helping my elderly next-door neighbor, Ruby, remove years of flea-market finds, incredible buys, and assorted debris from what was to have been a spare room. Ruby was everything her name implies. She was also a packrat.

As I pulled the awkwardly shaped mirror out from behind a crib mattress Ruby was sure she might need one day, I immediately noticed the craftsmanship. The detail, the inaccuracies, and the aged brown paper, stretched across the back of the frame, proclaimed “hand-crafted”.

Turning it to once again admire the carvings, I caught Ruby’s reflection in one of the panels. She stood behind me, and a little away; and, on her face, a look of adoration, usually reserved for my children.. Glancing at her, I asked the question without words, and she began to tell the story.

The mirror had been in her family as long as she could remember, which was a very long time. It had been the centerpiece of her grandmother’s dining room, and then, later, her mother’s “front room”. She wasn’t clear as to whose hands had done the carving, but she knew he had presented it to the family as a treasured heirloom, and they had treated it as such, for decades. Regret replaced delight as she explained it’s present home.

“I used to have a place to hang such things, but I don’t anymore.”

Coming closer, she raised one gnarled hand towards the apex of the frame and rested it upon the most elaborate of it’s decoration. After several seconds, she used the same hand to retrieve the ever-present tissue from the pocket of her shapeless sweater, and dabbed tobacco juice from one corner of her lined, colorless mouth.

“I want you to have it.”, she proclaimed, and turned back to the box she had been pillaging before my find.

I stared at her bent back for several seconds, before challenging her decision by suggesting she consider making a gift to one of her two daughters.

“Do you see either one of them here today?”, she barked as she rose creakily, turning slanted eyes in my direction. “Huh? Do ya?”

Several seconds passed in uncomfortable silence before she closed, quietly, with “Alright, then.”

I hung the mirror, that evening, over the sofa in my living room, and it was, once again, the centerpiece it was meant to be. It hung there for several years, until the size of my family exhausted the space inside the little house next door to Ruby, forcing us to leave our friend. But, her mirror made the trip. In total, I moved the mirror to three different homes. Ruby would see the mirror hung in all but the last, but, somehow, I’m sure she knew it was there.

During my most recent move, light packing, invoked by emergent situations, left the mirror hanging for the next occupants to admire. And, I hope they did. I hope the decades of love and care stroked into it’s wood demanded the respect it, and she deserved. And, Ruby, who was everything that name implies, understands.

>Facing the Mirror

>
I think about that old mirror often.

“I used to have a place to hang such things, but I don’t anymore.”

“I want you to have it.”, she proclaimed, and turned back to the box she had been pillaging before my find.

I stared at her bent back for several seconds, before challenging her decision by suggesting she consider making a gift to one of her two daughters.

“Do you see either one of them here today?”, she barked as she rose creakily, turning slanted eyes in my direction. “Huh? Do ya?”

Several seconds passed in uncomfortable silence before she closed, quietly, with “Alright, then.”

Playing In The Dirt…

Yesterday, Shane and I went in search of the perfect pansy. He has accompanied me in my hunt every year, so I expected the loud groan and “Oh, Mom….” I heard when I announced the time had come.

“Will it take long?”, he whined.

“Well, that depends. If we’re lucky, they’ll have lots of good ones. If not, we’ll have to look.” My voice was bright in an effort to impart some of the enthusiasm I was feeling, but he didn’t seem to get it as he slumped down the hallway in search of his shoes.

As luck would have it, we encountered flats and flats of gorgeous painted faces in every conceivable color. And today, I got to play in the dirt.

My first task was to remove all the summer flowers, still clinging to life in the warm Georgia sun. This is the part I like the least. I always feel a twinge of guilt at ripping a brave survivor out by the roots, so I grit my teeth, clear my mind, and just start pulling.

And now the fun begins. I don’t use gloves to do this kind of planting, as I like the feel of dirt on my hands. While shoving them, over and over into the aromatic black dirt, I mentally applauded my decision to cancel my manicure appointment on Friday, and a mischevious smile crossed my face as I imagined the reaction of the beautiful, little sprite who tends my hands if she could have seen the way I was treating her handiwork.

I filled all the containers, using bright yellows, purples, and pinks on the patio…

and old-fashioned ruffled pinks next to the house…

And, as I headed to the back of the yard, towards the bench which has long-since been swallowed up by the English Ivy I planted three years ago, I thought back to last summer. My daughter called to say she and a friend were coming for a visit. They arrived in full make-up and skirts with heels, prompting me to wonder at the occasion. My daughter produced a monstrous high-tech/high-end, camera featuring a nearly foot-long snout of a lens, and explained that her friend needed updated photographs of herself for a project she was working on.

“And, I told her we should come here. Your yards are just picturesque!”

It is one of the loveliest compliments she has ever paid me…

And, of course, there was music….

>Playing In The Dirt…

>
Yesterday, Shane and I went in search of the perfect pansy. He has accompanied me in my hunt every year, so I expected the loud groan and “Oh, Mom….” I heard when I announced the time had come.

“Will it take long?”, he whined.

As luck would have it, we encountered flats and flats of gorgeous painted faces in every conceivable color. And today, I got to play in the dirt.

I filled all the containers, using bright yellows, purples, and pinks on the patio…

and old-fashioned ruffled pinks next to the house…

“And, I told her we should come here. Your yards are just picturesque!”

It is one of the loveliest compliments she has ever paid me…

And, of course, there was music….

Watching….and Waiting

Steam from my bath still filled my pajamas as I prepared to reap my reward of curling up with a book in preparation for bed, when one of my more apolitical friends called to tell me to turn on CNN. It didn’t strike me, at first, the aberrance of her behavior, as she gushed excitedly about a report on the cost of making Sarah Palin a presentable Republican candidate, because as plasma filled the television screen I saw she was giving an interview, minus prepared remarks, and my attention became focused in hopes of witnessing, yet another, blunder.

Whereas her words were not particularly polished, neither were they foolish, as she stumbled through her efforts to give the appearance of answering a question, while directing as many barbs as possible at her running mate’s opposition. I became bored quickly when it became apparent she would say nothing I could use as fodder around the water-cooler next day. But, I didn’t change the channel, or turn off the set.

In my ennui, I noticed her appearance. Her perpetually carefully coiffed hair lacked it’s usual luster, as it hung below her shoulders in strands shaped by the length of her day. Dark eyes, known to sparkle and snap, appeared somewhat dull behind the glare on her designer glasses. Her voice was tired, and her posture strained.

I began to reflect on the many faces of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin, wife, may have had an argument with her husband, just before sitting down for another, in a long line of interviews. Sarah Palin, mother of 4, and soon-to-be grandmother, may have just had to bandage a knee, or discuss a report card, or quiet the histrionics of her pregnant daughter, or settle an argument between siblings, or diaper her baby. She may have come from an appointment with her son’s doctor, and the news may not have been good. Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, may have had to deal with unhappy legislators, or worse, disgruntled constituents. She might have just flown cross country after attending a ribbon-cutting, or spent hours shuffling through official government documents requiring the governor’s signature. Sarah Palin, Vice-Presidential candidate, may have slogged through all of these things; a disagreement with her husband, fights between her children, insecurity in her daughter, dirty diapers, doctor’s appointments, complaining constituents, cross-country flights, and reams of paper, only to end her day in a cheap vinyl chair across from a news reporter asking impossible questions. Because Sarah Palin is all of these things; Wife, Mother, Governor, and, Vice-Presidential candidate.

And this is why we watch. This is why, at the end of a Presidential campaign that seems to gone have on forever, we still sit in front of our television sets, mouths agape, watching, and waiting.

As the interview ended, the anchor teased the following segment which was to detail the cost of making Sarah presentable, and, in a country whose primary source of entertainment is contained inside digital video recorders, we sat through commercials to watch an unprecedented piece. And it is unprecedented, because we, as a nation, have never been in this place before.

Kicking her gender aside, I wondered as I waited, why they hadn’t done the same kind of piece on Joe Biden, and then I remembered. Joe Biden has been presentable, and present, forever. I ticked through a list of others who might have been profiled, and realized that none actually qualified for this kind of attention. Given that, and the marketability of her gender, which was, after all, the motivating factor in her choice as a candidate, I feel the piece was fair.

I’m not bothered by the fact that Republican supporters footed a $4000.00 bill for her coiffure, or shuffled her off to Neiman Marcus with a blank check with which to purchase her form-fitting suits. Realistically, one could not expect them to trot out an Alaskan housewife/hockey mom-turned Governor without a little sprucing up. It is, after all, the American way, and “when in Rome….”

Pundits, and even John McCain, himself, have been quoted as saying Sarah Palin was brought on board to breathe new life into the Republican party. Some are even going so far as to say she is the “new face” of the Republican Party.

Pundits aside, I am convinced that Sarah Palin, wife, mother, Governor, and Vice-Presidential candidate, has breathed new life into a Presidential campaign that had already gone on too long before she became involved. And, regardless on what side of the aisle we sit, SHE is why we are still watching…

>Watching….and Waiting

>
Steam from my bath still filled my pajamas as I prepared to reap my reward of curling up with a book in preparation for bed, when one of my more apolitical friends called to tell me to turn on CNN. It didn’t strike me, at first, the aberrance of her behavior, as she gushed excitedly about a report on the cost of making Sarah Palin a presentable Republican candidate, because as plasma filled the television screen I saw she was giving an interview, minus prepared remarks, and my attention became focused in hopes of witnessing, yet another, blunder.

And this is why we watch. This is why, at the end of a Presidential campaign that seems to gone have on forever, we still sit in front of our television sets, mouths agape, watching, and waiting.

Intangible Losses

A cacophony of muffled beats filled the room as the probe glided across her bulging belly, revealing two separate, but equal, beating hearts.

At 4 foot, 11 inches, she hadn’t much space to offer. But, she gave what she had, and the three of them grew, together.

When the time came, she birthed them, one blonde and slight; the other dark, and burly.

And, she suckled them.

She diapered them, and offered a supporting finger to clasp, as they took their first steps.

She applied tissues to runny noses and bandages to skinned knees, and sent them back out to play, with a pat to their denim covered behinds.

And, still, they grew; together and apart, as she had, by now, broken the cycle of addiction and abuse with a single act of love that meant absence from their home, but not their hearts.

As adults, they manifested as they presented; small, light, and slight would remain so, in body as well as spirit, while dark and burly became their rock.

Long past the age when anyone could have considered them accident prone, she lost them both,

in separate incidents,

years apart.

And, I was there…

I watched, impotent, as she integrated her new reality and did what she had to do, and survived. I offered tangible assistance out of the realization that as a mother of four living children, I could not understand the intangibles.

Through it all, I am painfully aware that all she has left of the lives she nurtured is a cherished box of ashes, a slideshow of memories, complete with sound, and love that longs to be expressed. And, my own mother’s voice rings in my ears, “Life is not fair!”

As her closest and dearest friend, I never speak of them.

She talks of them often; relating humorous anecdotes, or bemoaning the lack of a male to attend to the mechanics of her life. I listen quietly, or laugh, and comment where appropriate.

More importantly, I allow her time with them. I watch as she pulls them to her breast when she feels the need to hold them close while searching their faces for answers.

Today would have been their birthday. Had they lived, they be facing the agnst of middle age.

And, for the first time since her loss, when the pain became too much to bear alone, she called. She talked, and she cried, and she shared, while I listened without questions.

Because, a friend doesn’t conjure the pain.

A friend absorbs it.

>Intangible Losses

A cacophony of muffled beats filled the room as the probe glided across her bulging belly, revealing two separate, but equal, beating hearts.

At 4 foot, 11 inches, she hadn’t much space to offer. But, she gave what she had, and the three of them grew, together.

When the time came, she birthed them, one blonde and slight; the other dark, and burly.

And, she suckled them.

She diapered them, and offered a supporting finger to clasp, as they took their first steps.

She applied tissues to runny noses and bandages to skinned knees, and sent them back out to play, with a pat to their denim covered behinds.

And, still, they grew; together and apart, as she had, by now, broken the cycle of addiction and abuse with a single act of love that meant absence from their home, but not their hearts.

As adults, they manifested as they presented; small, light, and slight would remain so, in body as well as spirit, while dark and burly became their rock.

Long past the age when anyone could have considered them accident prone, she lost them both,

in separate incidents,

years apart.

And, I was there…

As her closest and dearest friend, I never speak of them.

She talks of them often; relating humorous anecdotes, or bemoaning the lack of a male to attend to the mechanics of her life. I listen quietly, or laugh, and comment where appropriate.

More importantly, I allow her time with them. I watch as she pulls them to her breast when she feels the need to hold them close while searching their faces for answers.

Today would have been their birthday. Had they lived, they be facing the agnst of middle age.

And, for the first time since her loss, when the pain became too much to bear alone, she called. She talked, and she cried, and she shared, while I listened without questions.

Because, a friend doesn’t conjure the pain.

A friend absorbs it.

Feelings, as Music

Music takes me places….

The haunting voice of Damien Rice, singing “The Blower’s Daughter”, gives me pause, and conjures images of what might have been.

The flowing give and take of the classically trained takes my breath, as I listen to “The Prayer”.

And the words….

Dave Matthews’ lyrics float erotically over a sensual melody in “Crush”, and the air draws closer, as my body moves in time to the feeling.

And, when Dave Grohl snarls “Best of You” into a microphone, the anthem moves me to raise my hands, stomp my feet, and growl along with him.

This past July, a couple of my favorite bands were scheduled to appear as part of a music festival to be held in a large, outdoor arena.

Knowing that my son, Shane, also loved this music, I decided to make this his first “real” concert. Oh, I had slogged his stroller ahead of my flowing gauze skirt through the mud at “Lilith Fair”, and we once loaned him out to a newly single friend, who took him to a “Three Dog Night” reunion concert as date bait, but he can’t really remember any of that.

We arrived hours before the headliners were scheduled, giving us time to enjoy the entire “music festival experience”. Just outside the gate, a local band blared from a make-shift stage, and as we passed the quaking amplifiers, my son used his hands to cover his ears, leaving his thousand-watt smile showing. His head began to bob, independent of his body, and I knew he was feeling it.

Just inside the gate, we ran into a former baseball coach whose job in the sheriff’s office gave him first pick of security gigs. Two pairs of eyes lit, as they spied each other, and Shane began to babble incessantly. When he mentioned the headliner, our friend stood up and said, “Well, why do you think I’m here? I’ll be there! I can’t wait!” Forevermore, his former baseball coach would be “cool”.

I picked a spot on the lawn near other families and a small group of polite-appearing college students. As we sat in silence, I drank in Shane’s eyes as they grew large; taking in the lights, and the sounds, and the people. After several minutes, he turned.

“Mooom! This is awesome!”

The next hour was spent enjoying our surroundings. Shane studied every image, as though he might be tested next morning. He read the program, from cover to cover, as I volleyed texts with a beloved friend who wished he was there.

A trip to the concession stand afforded more opportunities to mix with the crowd, and I was heartened to see the respect they afforded the newbie. Good manners, all around; and I was not the only one who was impressed. Shane left knowing that caring for others is “cool”.

The lights went down for a final time, as stagehands scurried between the shadows in preparation of the main stage. Darkness had fallen, and we lay sprawled in the grass under the stars, concocting images from cumulus.

The first chords rang out over our heads, prompting us to jump to our feet, just as the lights came up. And, we rocked.

As they opened with one of our favorite songs, I bent down to face my son, and we screamed the lyrics along with the band. Our bodies moved, our hair flew, and our breaths melded as our voices became one…and we danced.

For almost two hours we sang, and screamed, and danced, and sweated…together. And, when it was over, he said it again, a little out of breath.

“Mooom! This is awesome!” And, we made a memory…

An unknown author wrote: “Music is what feelings sound like.”

And, it is.

>Feelings, as Music

>Music takes me places….