It's hot. It finally rained, if you call just enough to fill the shallow birdbath rain, after two weeks without a drop. I’m tired of watering, especially since it’s so ineffective. All that has nothing to do with my mother, but I will get to that. I saw the deer this week; there really is one. It ate my neighbor’s roses. And tomatoes and cucumber leaves. It had dessert in my yard, but not too much. I sprayed my cayenne/curry tea again; and Gwen sprinkled hair spiked with garlic before she went out for Deer Off. I hope her repellent will keep the darling away from my garden, too.
What can I say good about way too much heat too early in the not-quite-summer? There is a gardenia bush at the end of my driveway, at the street. When I pull in each evening, with my windows rolled down because I don't use the air conditioner in town, the sweet heady scent soaks the thick air and fills my nostrils. The Rose of Sharon is blooming. Some people consider it a garbage tree--and I suppose it is--but I like the crepe paper flowers. Fireflies like the heat, and I like fireflies. It is a few degrees cooler on my new patio under the dogwood, and I sit each evening and breath summer in the south. The banana tree is tall enough to shade me when I stand beneath its broad leaves. I discover a cardinal nest, with mama sitting on it. After the rain I find it hanging by a straw, no babies or eggs in sight. I hope they got away. I'm turning wine into water with slow release garden art.
Most of my friends are several years younger than I, but this week I spend time with
two of those who are not. They get it: it is time, time NOW!, for the next big thing--maybe the last big thing. Time NOW! to step out of the frame that holds our lives when children need us; when we have to be “responsible”; when there is a mortgage to be paid; and when we seek fulfillment through the expected routes--the right job and the accumulation of stuff. Friends approaching 60 or beyond know this deep inside. The knowledge rolls around in our heads and our bodies and our souls and nags at us. "There is no more time," the voice says. No time left to say, “in ten years...” It is the tenth year. I don’t say that fatalistically. There is time to do it. But NOW!
"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” (Andy Warhol) Here's to all of my friends and family who have changed things, are changing things, or are thinking about changing things--whatever your age. You are my people! Change doesn't have to be radical--get rid of the couch you have hated for years. But dream--dream of the you that you want to be when you are free. Redefine free. Life, even when it lasts 95 years and counting, is short. I want to share with you a poem I wrote for my mother, Stellajoe English Staebler, for her 86th birthday, and updated a bit for her 95th.
I want to tell you about my mother.
I will tell you how in 1952 she gave birth to a fat, happy ten pound baby girl and how tired she was.
I will tell you about the costume birthday party she had for me and my friends.
I will not tell you about the big deal she made of my one boy friend not putting the toilet seat down
because my little sister said she almost fell in.
I will tell you that she signed me up for French lessons and art classes and taught my Girl Scout troop how to make fudge and neat corners in the bed sheets.
I will tell you she kept sending me to piano lessons beyond when I wanted to go.
And I’m glad.
I will not tell you she didn’t show me the importance of making time for myself.
But maybe I figured it out because I saw that she didn't.
I will tell you she sold encyclopedias so we could have a set
and concert tickets so we could attend.
I will tell you I hope she also did it because she enjoyed it. But I’m not sure.
I will tell you she loves the natural world best of all, and showed me how to love it.
I will tell you she knows about love for the long haul, because she and my father had it.
I will tell you I know now that it wasn’t always easy, because she told me.
But she didn’t let on back then. Maybe she should have, maybe not.
I will not tell you how hard it was for her to tell me the facts of life.
I will tell you she thinks I was a great mother and tells me often.
I will not tell you she thinks she didn’t teach me how to love my kids best of all.
That she’s always saying I know what I know and am who I am in spite of her.
I will tell you she is wrong about that.
I will tell you she misses my father.
I will tell you she’s the clipping queen, sending me and my sisters and our children articles on everything we might be remotely interested in.
Or not.
I will tell you she knows about being brave and strong.
I will not tell you she thinks nothing she does is ever good enough.
I will tell you how she still walks faster than I do, in her fashionista lace-up, ankle-protecting boots. With a cane that has flowers on it.
That she uses like a walking stick.
Not like a cane.
I will tell you the hats and visors that protect her well-used eyes always match her ensemble,
even when she isn’t going out.
I will tell you how lucky I feel inside that she is still here,
and still teaching me.
But what I really want to tell you is that my mother is like a warm shawl,
With patterns formed in her beloved Smoky mountains
With fringes that reach back to the strength of her mother,
With the warmth of her love for me that wins out over long-past disappointment in my choices,
With the love of my father she keeps alive,
With threads that bind her heart to mine.
I want to tell you how
the weave of her life
the truths, the not-so-truths,
the dreams realized, the dreams abandoned
wrap me up with love.
Poetry form borrowed from Sarah D. Haskell
Happy Birthday, Mother!
No comments:
Post a Comment