A Walk on the Mild Side

I don’t know how it happened. I’ve actually spent time thinking about it…

One day I realized I had traded “Afternoon Advice” on Sirius’ Playboy channel for Dr. Laura. At first, of course, I declared myself “old”. The racy language and vivid, spicy, radio-wave images painted by Ms. Granath’s croon had become too much for me; distasteful, even. And while I didn’t necessarily agree with everything Laura Schlessinger said, I could, at least, listen without cringing.

Truthfully, she sucked me in with logic. And, talk about your “no-spin zone”! Dr. Laura doesn’t dance, much less dip. Dr. Laura thrusts without benefit of parry, and her aim is infallible. She is no nonsense, an arbiter for personal responsibility, and able to cut to the quick without drawing a single drop of blood.

If you are fat, her advice is “Eat less, and move more.” Who can argue with that?

If your ninth-grader fails English while excelling in Computer Science, she suggests you recognize the blessing in having his strengths exposed early, and encourages you to find an outlet for his love of technology. Remember, Bill Gates began his march towards the Fortune 500 in his father’s garage, without benefit of a college degree.

At the same time, if your adult son makes the decision to “shack up” with his “unpaid whore”, she advises that you shun the couple until your son comes to his senses by making his “honey” a certified, marriage certificate bearing, part of your family. My son has lived with a girl I think of as my daughter for most of the last six years. When pressed on the idea of marriage, he explains he wants to be sure. He only wants to marry once, and sometimes she acts “crazy”. I get that.

Dr. Laura has a prescription for “the crazies”. She even wrote a book about it, entitled “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”. My first thought, on hearing the title, was in recognition of its clever turn of phrase. My second was that it reminded me of a manual written for the owner of a new pet. And, there’s the rub…

In the book, Ms. Schlessinger, who is quick to remind her callers that she is not, in actuality, a medical doctor, counsels women to woo their men with sweetness. If your man breaches the doorway of your comfortable abode wearing a scowl, shoo your children to their rooms, and put your tongue in his ear. If he complains about dinner, sit in his lap. and whisper your plans for a midnight romp over the spoon in your hand as it carries the plane into the hangar. And, if he behaves as though his dirty clothing only enhances the pattern of the rug in your bedroom, tip-toe through the piles of synthetic fibers while waiting for him to unwittingly toss his dirty underpants into the hamper, and then shower him with matriarchal positive reinforcement.

Dr. Laura favors use of the word “Feminista” in reference to women raised in the “wild-child” era of the seventies. That would be me.

I remember smiling, sardonically, upon first hearing her use the word. It’s been used before. I once watched parts of a pornographic film bearing that title. It actually contained a story line, which explains why I only watched parts. Men don’t watch pornographic films for the story line.

On second thought, I think that title was “Fashionista”…never mind…

My point is this; after months of listening to Laura Schlessinger counsel well-meaning women hoping to save their marriage, or their children, or their children’s marriage, or their children’s children, I have realized that Dr. Laura has made a fortune by simply turning the tables. She’s quick to hold feminists to a mirror, to highlight their role in the emasculation of men. And, as a flashlight trembles inside one emaciated hand, the other ties a quick knot in the apron strings of a woman whose only goal is to do the “right thing”.

I don’t completely disagree with the notion that the women’s movement smudged the line of demarcation, leaving many men confused, loathsome to assert what heretofore was accepted as God-given. It’s a problem. But there is another side to that coin.

While some men cringe and stumble over words their father would have spoken freely, others see the change as permission to be “less than”, wallowing in their evolution. This will, at first, draw a girl’s eye, but wears thin relatively quickly.

I am struck by the irony. Ms. Schlessinger rales against stereotypes inherent in the feminist movement while reducing men to a race of singularly visually motivated creatures who can forget anything, as long as sexual activity looms in their very near future.

A stereotype turned inside out is still a stereotype.

Branded

It began as a message, unspoken;

an ocular indictment in a look of disappointment.

“Why can’t you be…?”

“I wish you were…”

“Try harder.”

As the eyes dimmed, the mouth moved,

forcing words over teeth that bite through consonants.

“Why do you always…?”

“Can’t you just….?”

“Try harder!”

And, the eyes, and the words brand the heart.

Now the looks reflect off glass and the words, unspoken,

populate the quiet spaces.

“Why didn’t I…?”

“Should I have…?”

“I’m trying…”

Finding Farrah

As far as I am concerned, Katherine Hepburn was the quintessential woman; the type of woman who could pull on a pair of stove-pipe, worsted-wool trousers under a form-fitting, man-style vest while puffing on the cool end of an unfiltered cigarette and still be the classiest woman in a room filled with skirts.

Farrah Fawcett was no Katherine Hepburn. When “Charlie’s Angels” jiggled across our television sets in 1976, I immediately dismissed the toothy blonde who would soon make history for no greater talent than being blessed with good hair. Kate Jackson caught my eye, at first. Rail-thin and smart as a whip, I loved the earthy gravel in her voice as she shared her unfailing common sense with Bosley, Charlie, and the girls. Later, I grew enamored of Jaclyn Smith. Equal in intelligence to Sabrina, Kelly retained a soft, warm femininity, and she knew how to use it. As I watched the three of them cavort through the mean streets of Los Angeles, Farrah’s character, Jill, elicited nothing more from me than an occasional groan at her rendition of a bubble-headed blonde.

She did some good work in the eighties. I still carry around an image from the movie “Extremities”, in which her character restrains her attacker, caging him under a table before calling her friends for help. The strength of her performance left me wondering if her earlier portrayal of a vacuous bimbo was just as masterful.

Then came her incoherent interview with Letterman, which she followed with a reality show featuring long-time companion Ryan O’Neal. I watched one episode, and was sure I could feel myself leaking brain cells as I watched. But watch I did. It was a train wreck, and it’s always hard to turn away from a good train wreck.

Several weeks ago, purely by chance, I saw Farrah on television again. Her famous mane had been shorn, and her skin looked weathered. Her eyes carried age and pain, but her voice remained unchanged as she read from her journal, chronicling her battle with anal cancer.

Much has been written since the program aired, and especially since her death, about Farrah’s decision to share her journey. But, I’m glad I watched. The hour was filled with images of torturous medical procedures, stomach-churning rides in limousines, and long passages of prose written by Farrah in anticipation of the time when she wouldn’t be around to speak her words. But, this is not what remains with me.

I remember the love; the love rained upon her by her companion, Ryan O’Neal, the love she inspired in her care-takers, the love she felt for her errant son, and, her love of self.

Farrah Fawcett was a simple girl from Texas who was blessed with great teeth and better hair, and in the end, none of that was important. In the end, it was all about strength and love.

And, I’m grateful for the lesson.

No!

I am given to excess…

Once, when I was fairly young, maybe eleven or twelve, I ate enough chocolate to elicit an allergic reaction. Details of the event are lost in a blessedly selective memory. I know my mother had spent the better part of an afternoon baking what I remember to be cupcakes for someone’s birthday or a school party, or some such. I know she was called away by the telephone, probably to run her leg of a car-pool. And, while she was away I ate. Upon her return, we met each other red-faced; she from anger, while hives competed with embarrassment upon mine. I’m sure she was angry that I had wasted her efforts, but the subject of her tirade focused more on the effect than the cause.

Much later, I worked with a friend who took prescription diet pills, which she generously parsed among her closest friends. Solid food didn’t pass my lips for a solid week. There simply wasn’t any time as I had never perfected the art of eating while smoking, and smoking was really all I was interested in doing. Well, smoking and talking. I talked a lot that week. Understandably, our supply dwindled quickly, forcing us both to go cold turkey. After two days spent sleeping, when I wasn’t standing in front of the refrigerator, I called to tell her my speed-freak days were over.

I never suffered from morning sickness when pregnant. I was sick all day, particularly with my first child. The only food I could stomach was green grapes. Looking back on it, I’m sure this had something to do with the fact that grapes have no odor. You see, it wasn’t so much the sight of food as the smell of it that set my stomach to churning. Most nights, I met my husband at the door. As he fought to free his backpack from an over-ambitious screened door, I took the large, shrink-wrapped package of grapes from his over-burdened hand, consuming most of them before he emerged from the shower.

By my third pregnancy, I had learned to use vitamins and minerals to conquer my nausea, allowing me to eat as I liked. I was pregnant, after all. I was eating for two! Pringles had just introduced a new flavor, cheddar cheese, and after stowing the rest of the groceries away, I settled our girth onto a sagging couch cushion in front of one of my mother’s soap operas, and began to crunch. Immersed as I was in the drama of beautiful people saving the lives of others while seemingly incapable of solving the riddles of their own, I reacted with horror when my fingers were met by the hard, cold, metallic bottom of an empty Pringles can. Hours later, as I pressed my fevered cheek against the putrid coolness of bathroom tile, I silently vowed to never touch another Pringle’s potato chip as long as I lived. And, I never have…

At last count I own over one-hundred pairs of shoes, and those are just the ones I wear in summer. Untallied, the winter shoes were packed away.

Two drawers of my dresser are filled with frilly, feminine, lounge-wear, and yet, I almost always pull an over-sized, well-worn tee-shirt over my head after a bath.

It occurred to me today, that I have fallen under the spell of excess, yet again.

One of the best things about being a “woman of a certain age” is the freedom inherent in the experience we carry on our faces, in our hearts, and on our minds. I read recently that many women first learn to use the word “no”, comfortably, after the age of forty. I can relate to that. I never failed to speak a “no”, but I have spent a considerable amount of time wondering at the wisdom of the word. Time has taught me that most “no’s” are of little, or no, consequence.

And yet, I find myself reveling in the opportunity. I don’t wear make-up, because I don’t have to. I spend little or no time choosing my clothing because it really doesn’t matter. The tiny voice inside my head, who longs to see musculature ripple underneath my increasingly crepey skin, speaks loudest first thing in the morning. Rush and routine quiet her. And my diet remains relatively sensible until lunchtime, when a co-worker routinely waves warm tortillas in front of my face. I admit it…I’m a sucker for fresh salsa.

Many minutes of every day are given over to self-deprecation, to no avail.

On my way home, when much of my very best thinking is done amidst a multitude of carbon footprints, I realized I have taken saying “no” to a new level. “No!”, I don’t care to smear false skin-tone upon my sun-kissed face. “No!”, I really don’t care to spend precious minutes, otherwise spent sleeping, standing in front of a closet filled with the same clothes that hung there the day before. “No!”, I will start a new work-out program tomorrow. And, “No!”, I really don’t want the “Lean Cuisine” I deposited in the break-room freezer this morning.

Mid-life has turned me into a recalcitrant child. The music that inspired the dance I’ve danced since childhood has ceased, only to be replaced by a cacophonic, rebel yell inspired by the word “No!”.

I really can’t abide bratty children…

Huddled Masses

The telephone had yet to be connected in our apartment, prompting my roommate and I to stop at a local convenience store featuring a bright-blue payphone on an outside wall. I had been in Athens just a couple of days, and I knew my parents would worry.

“Dad!”, I exuded. “It is so cool here! They have these little tin houses that look just like boxes, and people live in them!”

“There is a reason you’ve never seen those before.” The tone of his voice invited no further query, and it wasn’t long before I uncovered the stigma attached to those living in what I came to learn were “mobile” homes. Both of my parents had always described apartment dwellers as “itinerants”. As I reasoned the significance of the usually rusted metal hitch sprouting from one side of each of the carefully aligned boxes, I could only imagine how the people residing inside might be described.

Prejudice, fear, and an emphasis on keeping up appearances had proved a remarkably effective shelter.

Shortly after I married, and before I discovered my husband’s addictions, we spent many Sunday afternoons driving around town before heading out into the countryside. Gasoline was cheap then, and we had money for little else. As we headed back into town after a long afternoon spent cruising down country lanes, he asked if I minded if he stopped at a friend’s house on the way home. Several hundred feet after turning off the main road, I saw another form of box-shaped building; row upon row of brick encased boxes with tiny yards featuring an occasional patch of green that passed for grass. Each box looked exactly the same, down to the rusted, ripped screen door that hung tongue-like from its frame.

Ricky steered his prized vintage Cougar into one of the short cement drives.

“I’ll be right back.” The car shook with the force it took to close the extra-long car door. I looked around as I waited, and wondered at the plainness of my surroundings. Except for the occasional hardwood, there was little in the way of greenery, as though nothing would grow in this environment. Crowds of young adults congregated on various corners seemingly oblivious to the squealing children darting between their legs. Many people walked along the streets, calling my attention to driveways inhabited only by rusted tricycles and aged basketball goals that appeared to have sprung from the cracked concrete beneath them.

My husband emerged followed by his friend, a tall, thin African-American man with an amiable face. Ricky grunted with the extra effort required to open the antique car door before introducing him.

“This is Boysie.” He waved his free hand in the direction of the taller man’s smile.

“How ya doin’?” Boysie’s smile grew wider as he spoke, bending at the middle in an effort to see inside our small car.

The two men conversed for several minutes before Ricky slid into the driver’s seat with a “See you, man.”, and the engine roared to life.

As we headed back the way we had come I wondered what my parents would think if they knew I had visited “The Projects”; and, at night! It never occurred to me to wonder what we were doing there. I had no frame of reference. Months would pass before I realized Boysie was my husband’s dealer.

Later, long after I had come to terms with, and rectified, the mistake I’d made in marrying a man I hardly knew, I went to work managing a midwifery practice that served mothers without insurance. Some of the women were Boysie’s neighbors, and many of those that didn’t live in a housing project were on a waiting list.

It was my job to screen patients for eligibility. Lack of insurance was just one requirement. Income and family size were also considered. Most of the women were already receiving government benefits that, at the time, grew with each successive birth. A woman who knew how to work the system might receive child support from more than one man, food stamps, Medicaid for herself and her children, WIC (another government supported nutritional program), and free or nearly free housing. It was no wonder that, very often, the clothes worn by the woman I was interviewing were much more stylish, and expensive, than mine. The benefits paid by our government to women who knew how to work the system gave a whole new meaning to “expendable income”. And who could blame them? In most cases, they had been raised in the same environment, just had their mothers before them. And, it was so easy…

Occasionally, I counseled a woman struggling to support her family on minimum wage. Ironically, the pittance she brought home as a reward for dirtying her hands doing a job most wouldn’t even consider, left her ineligible for assistance of any kind, and usually these women, too, joined the welfare rolls months before thier babies were born. Very soon, I came to think of this situation as “government induced poverty”.

During this time, the Olympic Games were held in Atlanta, and Athens was to host some of the competitions. Much was said about the state of public housing in the area, and the need to clean up before the world came to visit. I was heartened to think that some of our patients’ homes would be receiving much needed repairs, until I realized that the plan was to erect facades crafted of aluminum siding over the fronts of their homes. By the time the torch arrived, the ugly brick boxes had been transformed into quaintly crowded cottages. Flowers had been planted along the borders of newly laid sod. But inside, gaping holes marred many kitchen and bathroom floors in which rusted faucets dripped continuously. Unsightly window air-conditioning units had been removed, as had the rickety screen doors, leaving the inhabitants inside with no relief from ninety-degree heat. It seemed governments, too, were invested in keeping up appearances.

Last week, bulldozers razed the last remaining housing project in Atlanta. Upon hearing this, my first thought was of the residents. Had they been provided for? Did they have homes? Where did they go? It seemed like a heartless act perpetrated on a helpless population.

Upon reading an article in the local paper, I learned that, in 1936, Atlanta was the first city in the nation to erect public housing. I know a lot about my city. Somehow, this inauspicious fact had escaped me. The article went on to suggest that Atlanta is now the first city in the nation to abolish public housing. I continued to read, in hopes that a solution had been offered, and learned that displaced families will receive twenty-seven months of various types of assistance, with a goal towards self-sufficiency.

Further down the page the housing authority’s executive director was quoted as saying that the demolition “marks the end of an era where warehousing families in concentrated poverty will cease.”

Every now and then, we get it right.

Granting Wishes

Sometimes, I wish we could go away.

Not far, and down an oft-traveled road, but away.

The water under our deck chairs would absorb our words, whetting our appetites for more.

Sometimes I wish you had more ambition.

Sometimes I wish I had more ambition.

I always wish there was more living in making a living.

Your voice blows against me as we follow the same path in different directions.

But sometimes I watch you talk, and as the words fill the air between us I reacquaint myself with your nose, sitting just a little to the left, and your eyes, the softest shade of jade, and your mouth, which even when you speak turns up slightly on one side as though amused.

I’m in the garden, and out of the corner of my eye I see you hanging my clothes on the clothesline you wish you’d never strung between two trees you wish you had cut down, long ago.

And, I stop what I am doing, and come to you.

Skinned Cats

She opened the conversation by announcing herself.

“This is Dixie Lee Shapiro.” And, for a moment I was lost in a swirl of images.

A bleached blonde beehive swirled above heavy, dark eyebrows and a prominent nose. As she spoke, the image changed. Dixie still sported the haystack upon her head, but the exclamatory eyebrows and prominent proboscis belonged to the gentleman at her side. Either stereotype was implausible.

A rise in the tone of Mrs. Shapiro’s voice regained my attention. Her words shook in a manner that bespoke age and infirmity, as she explained her dilemma while begging my response. Her problem was not unique. I ferried several of these calls every day, and the pile of paper on my desk seemed much more pressing. I answered her questions in a clipped, business-like manner, steering the conversation towards conclusion. But, Mrs. Shapiro was having none of it. She wanted answers. She pulled out the big guns.

In a quavering voice, she explained that the check she’d written should have allowed her to receive telephone calls from her son who was incarcerated. It had been cashed, but they claimed not to have it. She hadn’t heard from her son in an awfully long time. Was there nothing I could do to help her? Mrs. Shapiro’s hair shrunk considerably as she spoke, and the image of her buxom figure alongside Mr. Shapiro was replaced by the creaking sound made by her rocking chair as it rode wooden floors that had, long ago, lost their sheen. Her worry, anxiety, and loneliness were palpable.

Empathy kicked in, and I went the extra mile, tracing her funds and forgiving the fee usually charged for such service. Her payment had been received. She had a legitimate complaint, and as I shared the information, I embellished with some advice in hopes that the lines of communication between she and her wayward son would soon be open.

“That’s what I thought, and I didn’t especially like it.” Her response was spoken in a voice I hardly recognized. The quiver was missing, and the tenor now carried smoke, and whiskey, and something more, something hard. She spoke for several seconds of her son’s girlfriend, who managed to speak to him “some kinda way”, before thanking me for my assistance and agreeing with my conclusions.

“Let’s start there and see what happens, ok, kid?”

I hung up with a smile.

Unmentionables

Most women like frilly underwear. We’re hard-wired that way.

Today’s girl starts out in stylish diapers emblazoned with feminine cartoon images. The accomplishment of potty training is rewarded by a whole new level of chic, as floral patterns and ruffles become available. I challenge you to offer an image sweeter, or more feminine, than a peek of ruffled panties under a pint-sized, smocked dress. And, at that age, we are generally proud of our hard-earned undergarments. We like looking at them, and we want you to notice, too.

The real fascination with femininity doesn’t start, in earnest, until the money handed the clerk behind the Victoria’s Secret counter is hard-earned, and your own. Having a parent accompany you to Victoria’s Secret would be something akin to being fifteen and having to ask your Dad for a ride to the drug-store and hearing him ask,“Why? What do you need?”. This situation is avoided whenever possible.

When I was a teen, “Days of the Week” underwear was all the rage. On first glance, this seemed like a very practical approach to underwear. Should you not remember whether or not you had changed, you could always consult a calendar for reassurance. Due to my mother’s insistence on waiting until she had a “full load” to launder however, this never worked for me.

All my friends preferred bikini-style, and I really tried to follow suit. But, after years of feeling the constancy of a cotton-elastic waistband riding upon my naval, I struggled with the feeling that I was losing my coverage. Giving up, I rode the “Granny Panties”, and there was no shame in this. Many girls made this choice. I know, because my reluctance to shuck my clothing in the showers after PE forced me to find someplace to put my eyes, as everyone around me stripped to the skin. Many pairs of “Granny Panties” hit the red tile floor as their wearers danced and giggled their way towards raining shower heads. “Days of the Week” emblazoned across the backside of “Granny Panties” was just wrong. I settled for a nice honey-comb weave.

They make underwear for pregnant women, though I’ve never fully understood why. Bikini underwear don’t infringe upon the protuberance, and “Granny Panties” can be worn bikini-style, until such time as the baby is born and mother has recovered sufficiently to drive to the mall to buy the larger size she will now require.

Though surely always present, panty-lines suddenly became a big issue in the eighties, and no-show underwear became all the rage. Whisper thin, they were seamless, and constructed of a sheer, elastic, nylon that morphed into a hopelessly pilled, knotted mess after just a few washings. Fortunately, I only bought and very quickly tossed, two pair.

As a more direct approach to the problem of panty-lines, thongs burst upon the scene in the 90’s. I remember the first time I saw a woman on the beach wearing a thong bikini, and thinking, “Why bother?”, followed closely by, “She really shouldn’t be wearing that.” Truthfully, very few women have the physique required to pull this look off, without reminding everyone behind her of what it would look like if you tied two, rather misshapen, beach-balls together and drug them through wet sand. Unfortunately, it is usually those who should avoid this fashion faux pas who seem most likely to parade past.

Being realistic about my body, I’ve never been tempted to string on a thong bikini. I did, however, attempt to solve my previously unsolved panty-line problem by wearing thong underwear, or as I refer to it, “heiney floss”. The experiment was short-lived as I soon discovered that they do, indeed, feel much as one might imagine they would feel given the unnatural nature of their construction. While standing, my panty-line problem was solved. Unfortunately, I spend very few days simply standing. Most days I feel the need to walk or, heaven forbid, sit. It is difficult for me to say which experience is more uncomfortable when thonged, sitting or rising from a sit. Either exercise may result in an elastic wrenching, requiring an increasingly painful walk to a private setting in order to make the necessary corrections. Despite the discomfort, I kept several pair of thong underwear after realizing that their value sprung not from the wearing of them, but rather in sharing the fact with someone whose imagination, alone, allowed him full view.

I love browsing the Victoria’s Secret catalogue. As I retrieve it from my mailbox, I always wonder if the postman enjoyed it, before sliding it into the box. For years, I’ve ordered the same type of panties. They are cotton, as good health dictates, and usually patterned or solidly, softly, pastel. Recently, as I leafed through the pages, I noticed an intriguing new style I’d yet to try.

It seems I’m not alone in my dissatisfaction with previous efforts to solve the panty-line debacle. Boy-shorts have hit the scene, and it seems everyone is wearing them. And, I can see why. Whereas the seamless, flimsy, nylon panties disintegrated, almost on contact, and thongs made ordinary movement excruciating, boy-shorts appeared to suffer neither of these traits. And, minus the confining elastic usually comprising the leg-hole of ordinary panties, the material rides along the bottom of one’s bottom, allowing a tiny peek of cheek. They are cute, bordering on sassy, and after some consideration, I placed an order.

Last weekend, I attended one of my favorite types of event, a garden party. The weather was warm without being hot, and a soft breeze was the perfect accompaniment to my crinkly, gauze, long skirt. I’d yet to wear my newly purchased boy-shorts, and decided this was the perfect occasion. The first pull came upon alighting from the vehicle in front of the house. Several minutes later, after climbing the steps to the deck, my hand went again to the back of my skirt. As I was directed to a table with filled plate in hands, I felt again a need to tug at the back of my underwear, but realized waiting until moving to sit might camouflage what had become a repeated movement. As I tugged again, I envisioned wearers of leotards, ballerinas and gymnasts, and their constant repositioning of their garments, and I knew I’d discovered the downfall of the latest trend in women’s underwear.

Next day, as I dressed in a similar manner for the office, I chose an older, more reliable pair of underwear while making a mental note to place an order for more. The boy-shorts though, will remain in my lingerie drawer. After all, they are cute, bordering on sassy, and there are times when a peek of cheek is more important than comfort.

Same As It Ever Was

“I’m a table sitter, just like my Mother.”

Knowing she wouldn’t be joining me allowed me the freedom to stretch out on her well-worn sofa.

Hallie eased herself into her usual spot next to a blinded window. A heavy sigh accompanied the release of her weight onto a vinyl captain’s chair, and the years washed away in my anticipation of her next move. Both hands went to her head, grasping at gossamer wisps which had rudely escaped the band she’d swept them into that morning. Another sigh and her hands went to the tabletop. Her lips pursed as her hands moved about the table, straightening a pencil against the edge of a writing tablet, carefully lining up book spines along their mitered corners, and touching each of three small stacks of paper.

As she took assurance in the precision of her surroundings I remembered rows of pencils, sorted by color and length, lying alongside a notebook in the laboratory where she worked. On quiet days, and sometimes just during a lull, I took particular delight in flicking one end of the pencil closest to me and watching the others careen like pick-up-sticks. She feigned disgust, but I understood the satisfaction she took in realigning her environment.

As she sighed, and sorted, and sorted, and sighed, I searched her face for change. Other than a slight gravitational pull around the corners of her mouth, there was none. Despite her claim of green, her eyes had always been of indeterminate color. They snapped just as they always had, behind eyeglasses whose shape demanded the word “spectacles”. The freckles that had always danced across her cream-colored skin were just where I’d left them, and her small, colorless mouth pursed between spurts of speech enriched with invectives.

“Remind me to give you a blow job later!”

It was the fall of 1992, the year the Braves won the pennant. Both of us had followed the Braves throughout the season. We knew stats. We referred to the players in such a way as to suggest we might have had them over to dinner the night before, and each of us had our favorites. John Smoltz was mine. We both agreed he bore an eerie resemblance to my wayward husband, who Hallie described as “poetic looking”. Hallie appreciated the talents of the wiry Otis Nixon and the second baseman, who she referred to as “Little Lemke”.

Sometime over the course of the Championship series, we had begun to watch the games together, by telephone; she ensconced inside her cozy duplex less than ten miles away from my little farmhouse, filled by the sounds of soundly sleeping children. The call usually came sometime after the seventh-inning-stretch.

It was the bottom of the ninth, and the Pirates were up two to zip. In an era free of steroid controversy, we thought nothing peculiar about the guns on Ron Gant, as he took the plate with the bases loaded. He sacrificed, making the score two to one. Brian Hunter popped up, leaving us with scant hope as a little-known pinch-hitter, named Francisco Cabrera, loped towards the plate. He singled, scoring David Justice, and an oft-traded, unlikely hero named Sid Bream. As Sid slid into home, securing the pennant, Hallie shouted her reminder into the receiver. I remember collapsing with laughter, and would recall little else about that game, or the ensuing World Series.

“I thought you were bringing Shane!”

Hallie stood on the steps leading to her front door.

“This can’t be Shane! Shane’s just a little guy! Who is this tall boy you brought with you?”

Color seeped into Shane’s cheeks as he shut the car door and walked, sheepishly, in the direction of my friend.

“Hi, Aunt Hallie.”, he said into his chest.

He walked, obligatorily, into her waiting arms and hugged her back. There was less than two inches difference in their height.

Gathering the few things I needed before leaving in search of a hotel room, I left the car and replaced Shane’s body with mine. My arms embraced her shoulders as hers encircled my waist. Time had carved precious inches from her already diminutive stature.

“Come in, honey.” She always calls me “honey”. “Be careful with that door. I need to fix the latch.”

Our love for each other spans twenty years, one birth, two marriages, two divorces, and the deaths of two children, both our mothers, and her beloved Aunt Flo. As I study her face for change, I realize mine is the one that is different. I am where she was when I left her to start over, again. Her changing was done. Mine had just begun. I shifted against the soft fabric of the sofa I rested upon, uncomfortable with the knowledge.

“I see you’ve changed your hair.” She made no effort to hide the disdain in her voice. “You’re wearing it like everyone else; like you haven’t combed it in days.” Ill health forced another sigh. “I don’t know why you want to do that. You have such nice hair. I liked it when you flipped it back.”

The fingers of her left hand weaved themselves into my hair.

“Oh, it’s very soft. It doesn’t look soft. It looks hard, but it’s very soft…just like it always was.”

And, it is…just like it always was.

“You’re my touchstone…”

Weighing Waiting Women

Women learn, from a very early age, to be good waiters.

The first thing I remember waiting for was my birthday. As the oldest of four girls, it was the only day of the year when the spotlight would be for me, and only me. Children came to a party for me. People bought presents for me. Mother baked a cake for me. Birthdays were always worth waiting for.

And then, of course, there was Christmas. True anticipation usually began about a week after Thanksgiving, when large, brown cartons were extracted from the attic and strewn haphazardly about the living room. It was mother’s job to string the lights, which meant more waiting for my sisters and I as we perched on the edge of a couch rarely sat upon, waiting for her signal to breach the boxes. Completion of decoration led only to more waiting. Twinkling, multi-colored lights reflected in our eyes as we “watched” the tree while imagining what hidden treasures lay underneath.

In a house with four girls and one bathroom, there is always a wait.

Soon after my sixteenth birthday, my father presented me with a reasonable facsimile of a car, featuring two seats on four wheels, and very little else. I soon realized it was the seating that concerned him most, and the words “Wait for your sister!” became the bane of my existence.

My sister, Laura, had one speed. A snail once challenged Laura to a foot race. The snail won. Most weekday mornings found me biding my time in an idling car with a blaring radio, for what seemed like hours, as Laura completed her toilette. Weeks of begging, and pleading, and screaming, and warning fell on immutably deaf ears. Finally, I cracked. Bidding her adieu with a foundation-jarring slam of the back door, I jammed the gear shift into reverse. All I remember of my return home is the anger in my mother’s eyes. The rest has been mercifully carved from my memory, but whatever the punishment, it was worth it!

The summer after my senior year in high school was spent waiting by the telephone. I met John, weeks before, while on a trip to Washington, DC with a youth group. When he called, it was to say he would be in Atlanta the following week. My excitement was tempered by the knowledge that I was scheduled to be in Destin on a family vacation. To her credit, my mother allowed me to make the decision. I remember very little of that week spent on the beach, besides a feeling of longing.

College graduation began the wait for my big move. My best friend and I had planned this day for years. Numerous shopping trips for linens, and dishes, and what passed as artwork, made the waiting easier. The experience of living together wasn’t the euphoria we knew it would be, and I gained a valuable life lesson. With the assistance of a good attorney, it only cost $400.00 to get out of the lease.

The only thing more difficult than waiting for the results of a pregnancy test is waiting for his reaction. Pregnancy is the ultimate exercise in waiting. I skipped waiting to discover the gender of my children. A long-ago forbidden foray into my parents’ closet, just before Christmas, had taught me that surprises are to be relished.

Pregnancy came naturally to me, as affirmed by the midwife who announced I had “childbearing hips”. For thirty-six months of my life I was a walking miracle, and I never forgot it.

I loved the quaint expression of being “with child”, and all that came with it. Pregnancy, of course, meant shopping in exclusive shops; exclusive as in those selling maternity clothes, nursing bras, baby furniture, bibs, pacifiers, and the genius that is the One-sie. My children were of the generation first introduced to this remarkable example of adorable efficiency. Thanks to the invention of the One-sie, babies no longer required trussing in order to get to the diaper; just four simple snaps, and you were in!

Mothering is synonymous with waiting. Waiting room carpet patterns are memorized, and it isn’t long before a tote bag filled with the necessities of waiting, takes up permanent residence on the back seat of a mother’s car. Mothers wait for hours in check-out lines accompanied by the wailing of an over-tired child; hers or someone else’s. Her first child’s first day of school is torturous for a mother who imagines, all day, trails of tears running down her child’s face when in reality it is her face that is wet. She can’t wait for her baby to come home.

Mothers think of clever ways to pass the time spent in carpool lanes, and later, outside movie theaters and shopping malls. Mothers wait outside dressing rooms until, curious, they grasp the doorknob, prompting the rebuke, “Not yet!”. Mothers wait, sometimes anxiously, for school to start as summer wanes, along with her children’s patience with one another.

As our children grow, waiting mixes with worry. I sat white-knuckled, at the front window, for the full fifteen minutes it took my son to drive around the block for the first time, alone. That was almost ten years ago. Yesterday, when he didn’t arrive within fifteen minutes of our agreed upon time, my face appeared again, at that window.

Even today, I am hard pressed to say which was more shocking, my mother’s announcement of her diagnosis with cancer, or her concurrent use of the word “shit”, as in “Pretty heavy shit, huh?”. On the day of her surgery, the sunny environment of the waiting room, walled floor-to-ceiling by glass, competed with the emotions of the large group of friends and family it housed. Having recently returned to school, I spent most of the day with a textbook. I turned pages filled with words I only appeared to read, until the entry into the room of a small group of green-clad men wearing serious expressions. Their words left no doubt as to the arduous journey ahead, and I would begin my night-time sojourns in the ICU waiting room within weeks.

My father didn’t want my mother left “alone”. He and one or more of my sisters spent the day at the hospital, never missing one of the fifteen minute intervals during which my mother was allowed visitors. Visits were not allowed after nine at night, so my brother-in-law and I took turns sleeping in the waiting room. For many months, waiting became a way of life, as my mother slowly healed.

Commuting lends itself to reflection. Commuting in the rain requires more careful attention, until rainy streets become the norm, and reflections resurface. Such was the case on Wednesday, when, as I rolled to a stop under a murky, red beacon, I realized I have unknowingly adopted a constant state of wait.

Last year was a year of unwanted, if not unexpected, consequences. Reminders of what proved to be an achingly short spate of purest joy, plague me, in the form of physical reminders with psychological presence. The realization that I have been waiting for a different outcome brought an ironic smile to my lips, and a reminder. Inherent in waiting is hope. And, with hope, all things are possible.