Carry Me, Mommy

Sometimes it sucks being an adult.

When I'm sick or life kicks me in the nasty bits, that's when I need my mom most. I want her to make me some chicken soup or hand me a candy bar and tell me I'm beautiful and everything is going to be just fine.

Mom has been gone for over three years. I don't think you ever get over losing your parents. They are the lighthouse when you're on turbulent waters. When the light goes out, you're left to wander the seven seas alone.

I do talk to my folks on a regular basis. Sometimes I can feel them nearby, other times, not so much. I sense my mom when I'm trying to sew something or I'm trying a new recipe. I'll contemplate taking a shortcut, and I'll hear her admonishing me. Or I'll be bringing in too many bags from the trunk of my car, and I'll hear her whisper, "Lazy man's load," right before I lose my grip and drop one of them.

Looking back, I wonder how she did it. With few exceptions, my mom held it together very well. Until the last few years of her life when her mind failed her, she was the glue that bonded our family. She was counselor, master hugger, comfort food maven and the source of seemingly bottomless love for us.

This morning, I was thinking about how much fun she made holidays like Halloween. She decorated the house, carved the pumpkin, and managed to keep us from chomping all the candy before the trick-or-treaters arrived. She helped us go through the limited selection of costumes and applied makeup where necessary. Then she kept an eye on us after we'd schlepped door-to-door to make sure we didn't consume all of our candy that night.

I wondered if Mom knew I was writing about her. I had a feeling she did. So, I decided to ask her a question.

"Hey, Mom, is all of this stuff in my life going to work out?"

"We'll see," she said.

Of course.

Scouting it Out

Every now and then I have weird flashbacks to my childhood. Lately, I've had the Ma Ku Ay song going through my head.

I'm not sure if it was the twilight stroll through the MetroParks last week. Or what exactly started this particular soundtrack going through my brain. But once it did, I had to dig a little deeper.

Following in my sister Diane's footsteps, I signed up with the Girl Scouts. I only lasted about two years or so, but it was enough to learn some cool stuff. Like a traditional Maori stick game. Thanks to the Google, I discovered the GSA calls them lemme sticks, but what they actually are is Ti Rakau. (Lemme sticks are part of a gambling game.) Stick games were used as a way to train young men in spear fighting.

We just called them Ma Ku Ay sticks, after the song that's chanted as you tap the sticks on the ground, click them together, or toss them to a partner:

Ma ku ay ko e tay O way ko e ta no
Ma ku ay ko e tay O way ko e ta no

My dad fashioned our sticks from old ladder rungs.  Back in the day, you didn't just go out and buy stuff like that. You went to your folks, told them what you needed, and they hauled something out of the garage or the attic and made it work. (In those days, EVERYTHING was recyclable.)

Also part of the Girl Scout experience was the "sit-upon." My mom made one out of an old Charles' Chips can. The concept is pretty ingenious, actually. You put your stuff in the can and carried it around by the rope handle mom put in the sides. You could use your sit-upon to plant your butt in front of a campfire. If I'm remembering correctly, mom even spray painted the can so that only we knew it was the can that wasn't returned to Charles when he delivered his next round of chips. (Yes, back in the day, CC delivered snacks to your door. When you returned the can, you got a deposit back).

Sometimes I wish I'd stuck it out with the Girl Scouts a little longer. We didn't do enough camping or hiking to suit me. But I enjoyed what we did. (Except for the outhouse thing. I still remember trying to hold it in until morning because I didn't want to have to wake up my "buddy" to walk with me through the dark.)

Unfortunately, Mr. Ginley's idea of roughing it is basic cable at a Motel 6. So I probably won't be doing any camping anytime soon.

But maybe we can take another walk in the park. I can crunch some leaves. And sing the Ma Ku Ay song to myself as we stroll.

Falling Fast

One day this week, I was driving down the street and noticed a few leaves changing color. Two days later, BAM, the leaves had burst into yellows and oranges and reds.

Must be autumn in Cleveland.

Like most seasons, the best part is here and gone so quickly, you can miss it if you blink. While that white stuff that shall-not-be-named seems to linger on and on.

I would love to enjoy this time of year, if only it would stick around long enough. If we're lucky, we'll have a few more days of warmish weather and some sunshine before all the leaves turn brown and it's time to rake. It feels like the statute of limitations is running out on hot apple cider and colorful drives through the parkway. Although I won't be able to experience the smell of burning leaves, a childhood favorite, since the practice has been outlawed. (Yes, I know, it's not good for the environment, but there was something about that aroma.)

So, before I have to go extract my rake from among the seldom-used tools in the basement, I think I'll make a pledge to take a stroll through the park or grab an apple or raise a glass of pumpkin ale and make a toast to this oh-so-short-lived season.

But, with my sense of direction, I think it's best if I stay out of the hay maze!

Do You Know Where You're Going To?

Our senior high school class song was the theme from Evergreen. Diana Ross belted out "Do You Know Where You're Going To?"

Let me be clear, this was not my choice. And, while the first few lines are appropriate, the rest of the lyrics dissolve into a what-used-to-be-wonderful-in-our-lives love story.

The irony is, for me it turned out to be perfectly appropriate. I had NO idea where I was going -- figuratively or literally.

As for the latter, I have never had a good sense of direction. If such a thing is hereditary, I believe I got the gene from my aunt. She told a story of a time she was invited to an event at someone's house with a group of people she'd corresponded with but never met. She got to the general area and kept driving around the neighborhood until she saw a house with a bunch of cars parked in the driveway, and figured she must have reached her destination.

She went in, introduced herself, and had a perfectly lovely time.

A few weeks later, she got a note from her group, saying they were sorry she wasn't able to attend. She never did find out whose party she crashed.

This is me all over. Mr. Ginley learned long ago that if I was navigating and told him to turn left, he should turn right. If I were a bird, I'd spend all my winters freezing my tail feathers off in Canada. I simply don't have the inner map that tells me where to go. (Although there are a number of folks, I am certain, who would love to tell me.)

Any journey to a new destination in which I fly solo involves excruciating planning. I consult Google maps and print out enlarged views so I know what the cross streets are before my point of arrival. Thanks to Mr. G., my skills have improved somewhat. He's said when he's no longer crawling the earth, I should probably get a GPS. Of course, those things aren't infallible. There was a tour bus in England that drove into a lake because the GPS said there was a road there. (It had been removed.) So one must still use one's noggin.

And Google maps are far from foolproof. One of the directions we were given in getting to my nephew's wedding was, "Drive over the Key Bridge and do a U-turn." During rush hour? Seriously? No, we didn't do that. We weren't feeling suicidal.

My problem is that not only do I have a difficult time navigating new territory, I also have to stop and think where I am going in familiar places. When we drive around Parma, for example, my spouse will spout, "But you grew up here! What do you mean you don't know which way to turn?" At which point I tell him the particular street we are on is not one which I frequently traveled, and, anyway, I didn't drive most of the time I was growing up, so I didn't have to pay attention. I could sit back and let Dad do the driving.

All of which just goes to show, I really do need a chauffeur to drive my sorry ass around town.

One with a very good sense of direction.

A Question of Memory

Witnesses are notoriously unreliable. If five people watch a crime being committed, you will get five different accounts of precisely what happened.

The same is true of meetings. If you sit through one with four of your coworkers, and if someone doesn't summarize what the action steps are, you and the other four folks will come out with differing opinions of what has been decided.

"The Outtake"

We all have built-in filters. Our experiences are run through them before we decide what to remember. We keep the things that resonate with us and discard those that do not. It's just how we are wired.

 When I was in my teens, I talked about a memory I had of our car running out of fuel and my Dad leaving my six-year-old self parked on a big hill while he went to get gas. He was horrified. He told me he never would have done that. I realized it must have been a nightmare, one that was so vivid, it became a memory. I'd held on to that nightmare for years. (I still get cold and clammy when the gas needle dips below a quarter of a tank.)

My husband tells a tale of our wedding, totally fabricated. It is certainly more "interesting" than the true story. He says if he tells it over and over often enough, when I'm old and senile, it's the tale I will tell to our grandchildren. (I think certain politicians espouse this "story-often-told-becomes-the-truth" theory.)

If you really want to test the waters on this memory thing, talk to the people you grew up with. Discuss your perception of what it was like being a child in your home. You will get as many variations as you have siblings. We choose our memories and horde them like bits of precious metal -- some of it radioactive. The golden bits are evidence that we were loved. The radium proof of the slights we endured.

In the end, what you keep is as telling as the memories themselves.

As I get older, I struggle to remember lots of things. And I wonder if the memories I hold dear are real or imagined. Then I decide it really doesn't matter, especially if they are happy. We're only hoofing it on this big rock for a short time, and often it's the good thoughts that keep us going.

In my book of childhood memories, I'm going to keep "dancing" to Mitch Miller records with Paul, listening to John and Gary play Beatles albums over and over, doing scavenger hunts made up by Diane, and late-night chats with Denise.

And I'm going to hope my son does the same kind of filtering with his childhood. Lucky for us, he doesn't have any siblings to compare notes with.

Since "Chuck" went off to college and never came back!