Goin' Down to Mama's

Mama Says: "Back Your Ears"

This is shaping up to be a challenging summer for the women in my circle. Two of my closest friends are dealing with multiple family illnesses that require their time and care. Other friends and family members have lost loved ones or are dealing with difficult personal trials. Their situations make me feel blessed that my struggles right now are all professional—two teams of people working two states apart to meet a tough deadline. It’s one of those projects we’ll all look back on and say, “How on earth did we pull that off?” But these are surmountable obstacles. If nobody’s in the hospital, it’s all good. When I was a kid, there was this commercial—can’t remember what it was for—but the slogan was “When you’ve got your health, you’ve got just about everything.” My cousins and I used to chime in, “When you’ve got your health . . . and about 2 million dollars . . . you’ve got just about everything.” The truth is, you can live without the 2 million dollars, but I'm thankful for every day that my family is healthy. One of the friends I mentioned is about to help her father through cancer surgery and treatment. And when we talked about it, she said her family would just face it and deal with it together, one day at a time. She has always reminded me of my mother. Mama’s a very face-it-and-deal-with-it kinda gal. When I was a teenager, going on about something difficult or unpleasant I had to do, Mama the farm girl would say, “Everybody has to do things they don’t want to do. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta back your ears and do it.” (For those of you who didn’t grow up on a farm, “back your ears,” refers to the habit animals—particularly horses and mules—have of laying their ears back when they’re mad or reluctant to do something.) Today, I'll be backing my ears and trying to figure out how to make the copy work on a tricky layout. Sounds pretty silly to worry about that. To all my sisters backing their ears for much bigger challenges—I'll be liftin' you up this morning. And I want to share my mother's favorite Scripture:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth,
 and even for evermore. Psalm 121

[Image by James R. Gray at Freerangestock.com]

 

Mama Says: "That Could Go Viral"

So I got a really early start in the Story Shack this morning, taking no time for personal grooming. And as I stepped outside (after daylight) to try and get Hank and Cheeto happy with their snacks, it occurred to me that I was wearing: boxer PJ bottoms in a tropical motif, a faded "Ragin' Cajun" T-shirt from a long-ago trip to Louisiana, and my winter house shoes, which look like suede booties with fur around the ankles. When I told Mama about it, she said, "Hope nobody got a picture of you on their cell phone. That could go viral."

Mama Says: "You Busy?"

Last Friday, en route to the mall with Daddy:

Daddy: Your mother says she needs some tops. She's got black pants, brown pants, and white pants, and she needs some tops. She says NO black. She's tired of black. She says I buy her black all the time.

Me: OK, got it. No black.

[We shop. We argue—about the black-and-white print blouse, the black-and-white striped shirt, and the charcoal number Daddy gravitates to. We agree on four colorful choices and leave the mall quite pleased with ourselves.]

Phone call with Mama yesterday afternoon:

Mama: You busy early next week?

Me: No, why?

Mama: I've got some tops I need to take back.

 

Mama Says: "You won't believe what we found."

Yesterday, Dave and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. And this is what we had for dessert. Tastefully wrapped in this trash bag is the top layer of our wedding cake—from seven years ago. When we were planning our wedding, the one thing I knew for sure was that I wanted Jan Moon to make one of her Dream Cakes for the bride's table. Jan's cakes are out of this world. (And because we must've been livin' right, my friend Mary Allen Perry, who created a gazillion Christmas cover cakes for Southern Living, GAVE us a whole groom's table full of chocolate wonders, for which we could never thank her enough.) Our guests devoured all of the above while we were still in the receiving line. Write this down: Don't put food in front of a bunch of Baptists if you don't want it gone. Mother saved the top layer of the cake and froze it so we could have it on our first anniversary. We forgot. On our second anniversary, when I asked about the cake, she said, "You got that already." For years, we have argued about the wedding cake, with Mama insisting she didn't have it while I insisted she did.

Well. Last week she called. She and Daddy were cleaning out "the deep freeze." And there it was, carefully wrapped in layers and layers of plastic wrap and then wrapped again in a white kitchen garbage bag. I brought it home, and we thawed it yesterday. After supper, we broke out the champagne flutes with silver hearts on them—another wedding present—and had a bite of cake and an anniversary toast. (We thought it best not to eat an entire seven-year-old dessert—but we were tempted.) Now, the fondant was a little worse for wear in places, and Jan's beautiful decorations had gotten smudged a little, but y'all, that cake smelled DIVINE and tasted great. It was still moist even. And if I wanted to get all philosophical about it, I could say that marriage is a lot like that cake. Sure, your icing might start to sag a little over the years, but if you start with quality ingredients and handle it with care . . . it's pretty sweet.

Mama Says: "You're Gonna Do Fine"

Yesterday I spent a few hours with Mother and Daddy before I had to play for a wedding rehearsal at a beautiful old church in a neighboring town. The groom's grandmother, Yvonne, is the pianist there, and she asked me to step in for her because her grandson wanted her to be part of the wedding party. Yvonne is one of the best musicians around. Stepping in for her is kind of like having Ginger Rogers ask you to dance a number or two with Fred while she sits in the audience. Daunting. And as I was sweating Pachelbel's Canon and other classical pieces I don't play very much any more, Mama said, "Oh, you're gonna do fine." You can't imagine how many challenges she has gotten me through with that one little line—piano recitals and church solos, semester tests and final exams, school presentations, work presentations, my first business trips, my own wedding . . . She has a way of saying it so that I believe it. There's something about the way she says "fine" that makes it downright ridiculous to think things could turn out any other way. She's saved me a fortune in self-help books. I don't need a life coach to tell me I control my own destiny. I just need Mama to tell me I'm gonna do fine.

With Love, From a Grateful Daughter

My mother has loved me, supported me, led me, inspired me, taught me, made me laugh, made me crazy, gotten us lost in Nashville, gotten us a duct tape window repair in the Mississippi Delta, walked on the beach with me, sung by the piano with me, prayed for me, bragged about me, shopped for Easter dresses and prom dresses and bridesmaids dresses with me, read to me, rocked me when I was sick, bolstered my courage when I was scared, set me straight when I needed it, let me go when she had to, welcomed me home whenever I could get there, waited patiently for me to find my way . . . Here are a few postcards from life with Mama, with love.

 

10 Signs That You're Turning Into My Mother

Yesterday I was emailing back and forth with an old friend (and mom), who was telling me about an upcoming school play. She said she didn't think she'd be able to wait till the actual performance and "might just drop in on a rehearsal." At which point I wrote back and said, "You are SUCH a Nannette—that is exactly the kind of thing Mama would do!" (That's my mother and me,sharing a joke we'll need to pray about later, in the shadow of Dave's grill.) I started thinking—everybody says we'll eventually turn into our mothers, but what are the warning signs? I don't know about YOUR mother, but I can tell you how you'll know if you're turning into MINE:
(1) You arrive everywhere 45 minutes early.
(2) You especially enjoy arriving 45 minutes early for lunch appointments with your daughter, so that when she arrives ON TIME, you get to say, "Where in the world have you been—I've been waiting forever."
(3) You express disapproval with the words, "Now, I just don't go along with that," which implies a certain moral depravity in anyone who DOES "go along with that"—whatever "that" is.
(4) You cannot leave a tea glass resting idle for more than 5 minutes without pitching its contents in the sink, then giving the stunned would-drinker an innocent, "I'm so sorry—I thought you were through with that."
(5) You cannot listen to Gaither songs without nodding your head and patting your foot in rhythm to the music.
(6) You cannot pass a garden shop without stopping—ever. [This is where I get a little jumpy. I'm doing that one already.]
(7) You can convince your husband that he's "really gonna enjoy" whatever social function you mean to drag him to. [Still honing my skills on that one.]
(8) You make everybody who sets foot in your house feel welcome and loved. [Working on it. But not yet at Mama's advanced level.]
(9) You're not afraid to laugh at yourself. [Heaven knows I give myself ample opportunity on that front.]
(10) You're a daughter's best friend:)

 

Mama Says: Watch & Learn

I can usually cure writer's block with iPhoto—a quick tour of our family pictures. This is one I hadn't noticed before, but I'm moving it to my Goin' Down to Mamas favorites. That's my mother feeding our friend Tahme's baby, while my teenage cousin looks on. I think this picture says so much about how we learn from the women in our families. We watch. We listen. We do both sometimes without even realizing we're doing it. Our mothers and grandmothers and aunts and cousins teach us how to be wives and mothers and friends and sisters. They show us how to care for other people—and stand up for ourselves. They give us the confidence to find our place in the world, when the time comes. And they circle around us when the Big Bad World treats us poorly. You can't count on the world. But you can count on Mama 'n'em:)

Mama Says: "I'll Buy It And We'll Split It"

My mother and I are very different creatures, in many respects, but as shoppers we are completely in sync. We are scanners, not scrutinizers, so we can move through a mall at "a pretty fair clip," as my uncles say. We like to get fitting rooms next to each other so we can take turns trying stuff on, encouraging a purchase when it fits just right, and offering support (or maybe a Kleenex) when that little dress that looked so cute on the rack ruthlessly reveals the extra helping of dressing we had at Thanksgiving. Those ill-fitting numbers usually elicit a "They just don't make clothes for me" from Mama. Now that I'm heaving at the door of 50, I know exactly what she means. Our all-time favorite shopping trips are the ones where we find this one thing that we both just have to have. One time it was a red patent purse that wasn't big enough to hold a wallet AND your car keys, so you had to choose between the two. But it was stunning. So we each bought one, used them maybe once, then stuck them on a closet shelf till we put them in a yard sale. This year, we chose more wisely. We were almost out the door of a local department store when we passed a special Oscar de la Renta display. "Let me show you everything you get for free when you buy this bottle of cologne," the salesperson said, loading up a gift box with a scented candle, a pair of earrings, bath powder, lotion, bath gel, and a fistful of cologne samples. Mama and I stopped, spritzed, and sniffed our wrists. "I'll buy it and we'll split it!" she said. She scurried to a register with her credit card while I collected our loot. "What's your name?" the salesperson asked, I told her my name and Mother's. "I'll say a prayer for you tonight," the woman said. "I like to say a prayer for all my customers." How brave was that—to tell a total stranger you're going to pray for them. (There's a book on that subject, if you haven't heard of it—Praying for Strangers by River Jordan.) It happened to me once before, several years ago. Dave was in the hospital, and I had hurried home just long enough to feed the cat and pick up a few groceries and my dinner at Publix. I guess I had my mind on the hospital because when I got out of the car in the grocery store parking lot, I left the door wide open. So when I came back with my groceries, I just stood there for a minute, trying to figure out why the car door wasn't closed. A woman—a stranger—saw me and stopped to see if I was okay and to make sure someone hadn't broken into my car. By way of an explanation, I blurted out everything, how my husband was in the hospital and I was worried about him and on and on. She smiled and said, "I"ll pray for you tonight." This time of year, we think more about people in need and how we can help them. We donate clothes and toys and food and money—as we should. But the truth is, everybody's in need, one way or another. Everybody needs the free gift of a little prayer said for them, maybe by a total stranger—maybe by you and me.

Mama Says: "I Am Give Out"

Late yesterday afternoon, after a freelancing marathon in the Story Shack, I called Mama to check in and see what she and Daddy were up to. "Well," she said, "we've been Christmas shopping all day long, and I am give out." Now here is a Southernism that doesn't get celebrated nearly enough. It's every bit as culturally iconic as "fixin' to"—and it's more layered. (Reference photo of Hank to see what it looks like.) "Give out" doesn't just mean "tired." It means "completely exhausted, incapabale of getting off the couch, incapable of coherent thought, and by the way if anybody in this house thinks I'm getting in that kitchen and cooking supper, they're outta their mind." I don't know its origins. Maybe it began, like so much Southern speech, long, long ago, across The Pond, when some Irish or Scottish woman, after a long day of washing and ironing and scrubbing the cottage cried out, "I hath given alst I can give!" and we, being the way we are, turned that into "I'm give out." In any case, we all know what it means and how it feels. After a too-long-for-comfort dry spell, I suddenly got covered up in work, and now that some of it is about to wrap up, I, like Mama, am give out. But like Mama also says, "It's a good tired."

[And now a word about Hank: See the throw he's snoozing on? My friend Tahme gave it to me years ago, and it's still my version of a Snuggie for wintertime TV viewing. When I'm a Christmas-movie-watching couch potato, with this throw over me, Hank will climb onto my lap for a nap—but only on the solid tan side. He won't sleep on the leopard-print side of the throw, I suppose out of respect for a fellow cat. It's OK, Hank. Tahme and I are animal lovers. It's strictly faux fur. No cat was harmed in the making of this throw.]