The subject of comfortable shoes dominates much of my recent conversation with friends. Shortly,
I will be eligible to collect Social Security payments. It will be eight years until I’m eligible for
the maximum. Another one of life’s
crapshoots, wagering if you’ll die at such a time so as to have received the
maximum benefit.
I grow fussier and fussier around the house. Partially because most of my office is now
relocated to the basement and I will be spending a lot more time there. But mainly because I am turning into my mother.
My sister looked like my mother, but I
never saw my own resemblance. My sister’s
daughter looks more like me. Suddenly, I
look in the mirror and I see my mother’s face.
I feel resentment when someone uses my cooking shears and doesn’t replace
them. I fantasize about reorganizing my
Tupperware cupboard and plan to actually tackle the job this weekend. When I’ve organized a space, for a few days I
check back in on it to revel in my satisfaction.
My mother often responded to my ill fortunes with “God
punished you.” And now that I’ve
virtually morphed into her, I think it may be true. I’ve grown now into a
number of her traits that I’d so disdained.
My tidying jags often come as a response to feeling out of control. Our recent legal nightmare and giving up
working in a real office for the first time in my adult life is
unsettling. My physical space is the only
place where I have a sense of control. I’ll
tackle the cleaning supplies shelf when I finish the Tupperware. Now that I understand how cleaning and
organizing compensates for a sense of powerlessness, my heart aches for my
mother and the fastidious home on Fulton Avenue.
The strike ends with a 3% retro raise. After six unpaid nights, I’ll just about
break even. The atmosphere at school is
sunny. The administration’s posted a “Welcome
back teachers!” sign and my colleagues have unusual pep in their steps. I seem to have lost about ten students which
is disappointing but also makes it way easier to teach.
We finish the unit on shopping and money. I print out ads from Super King, Food4Less
and Smart and Final and give them a list of questions which require some very
simple math and price comparing. I often
try to tip them off to my bargain shopping finds at the Grocery Outlet and the
Dollar Store. The twenty something men
do not find this as thrilling as I do.
But the moms take careful notes.
I have a classroom assistant, the seventeen-year-old
daughter of one of the ladies. Jessica attends
an inner-city high school and, as the first in her family to graduate from high
school, she is waiting for college acceptance letters. She’s already gained admittance to Cal State
Dominquez Hills but is hoping for a U.C.
Her mother is very conflicted about her living in a dorm and she’s
applied only to public universities within an hour of Los Angeles. No private or out of state colleges are
recommended to her. She has visited, and
been daunted by, the UCLA campus but hasn’t set foot on any of the other half a
dozen schools that she’s applied to. She’s
successfully completed a number of AP classes.
Jessica, helping the students with their comparison-shopping project,
asks me how to pronounce “shrimp.”
I cannot help but think about the different experiences of
my own spawn. A liberal arts degree was
always inevitable. My privileged white
sons grew up in a house full of (way too many, ahem…) books. We went to art museums, the theater and
Buzzcocks concerts. Jessica helps her 6th grade educated mom with a
worksheet. I assume she’s been translating
for her for most of her life. My
children are now great sources of comfort and support for me now. But, as children, outside of the electronic
realm, they never navigated my world.
Jessica wants to be a nurse or a teacher. My children grew up with books and movies and
music. But the seed of empathy was
planted early on in Jessica. I have to
teach her to say “shrimp,” but her character building has started early, and
this is a gift as meaningful, if not more meaningful, as dinner table debates about Radiohead’s best album
or whether Tennessee Williams is overrated.
Spuds comes and goes.
The only evidence of his presence is lights on in unoccupied rooms, lack
of beer and a cast iron pan left soaking in the sink. He’s lived in NY for five years and I just
trusted that he was ok. Now that he’s home
and staying out late at night and navigating L.A. traffic with a manual transmission
and driving a 20’ truck full of David Hockney paintings around the city, I find
myself fretting. I try to keep my mouth
shut and not bug him too much. Unlike my
own mom, or at least as I recall, I preface my micromanagement with the acknowledgement
that I am probably being real annoying.
I set Spuds up to apprentice for a fellow teacher who does
fine woodworking. After their first
meeting I get a note from the furniture maker that notes Spuds’ smarts and
poise. When he finishes at the woodshop,
Spuds stops by my office and moves five hundred films downstairs. He’s worked five long days in a row but
tackles the film schlepping without complaint. Later, he and his girlfriend
meet us for a screening of a colleague’s experimental film. There are people that he hasn’t seen for
years. He is jaunty, hugging folks and
introducing his girlfriend to old friends.
Number One Son calls.
I will never not have a moment of panic when the kids call instead of
text but my elder has gotten into the habit of calling, just to see how I
am. My friend Richard is gone now for
over three years. I don’t think that
anyone else in my life has ever phoned just to see how I am. I remember feeling angry, frustrated and
resentful of my mother. I did make sure
that she was comfortable in her final years, but I don’t remember if I ever
called just to see how she was. When I
offended her, she would warn me that I’d be wracked by guilt when she died. She was correct, but perhaps to a lesser
extent than she’d imagined. I hope that
when I die my kids will miss me but also, fill with pride at how rich they make
my life.
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