Life and Momma's Advice

To quote my dear and wonderful pastor, OMG. He's a wonderful pastor, concerned and in touch with the world, and I sent him an email this week, and got a text in reply. And yeah, OMG was appropriate. It's been one of those kick ya in the gut kinda weeks. I can't give details (don't ya love when people post in a public forum and then say they can't give you details - oh, well).
Sometimes you just get spun around backwards and it ain't the disco or the liquor. And just when I thought it couldn't be more overwhelming, I found out that I should never underestimate the universe. But here's the deal - I also can't underestimate God, and family, and friends and the ability to have perspective. Because as hard as the last couple of days have been, I have faith, I have prayer, I have my Beloved and he and I have always been strong together. And together we have our children. I am so blessed to be able to call my Momma, and listen to her voice and advice, some of which involved Jack Daniels. I'm not sure how everyone else handles major stress, but here's what I have to say:
I love you, Hubby!
I love you, my darling boys.
I love you, Momma and Daddy.
I love my dear brothers.
And I love my friends, who received my calls and texts and immediately gave back the love and soothing that I hope they know I will always try to give them.

Oh, and Jack is helping too - I always listen to my Momma.

My Mama and the Sister-Lady

The box of photographs fell to the floor when I bumped into the cedar chest. I had promised to have all the pictures scanned long ago. They are the last links to our past lives, other than each other, my brother, my sisters and I. Each photo has a memory tucked inside it, waiting for one of us to tell. I leaned over to swipe the pile back into the box, to get them out of sight before I was distracted by them and their stories, but it was too late.

A pixie face in a nun’s wimple peaked up at me, as if admonishing me not to be in such a hurry to bury the past. Sister Margaret Marie, my Mama’s buddy and my second grade teacher, was staring at me from a Suburban School photo. Suburban came to Sacred Heart Elementary every year to chronicle our lives. My mother taught kindergarten there, and we have a progression of photos from her years of teaching. Sister Margaret Marie had signed the back of her photo, “To Anna, Ain’t we something!” Just like that, I remembered my mother and her, heads together, two school girls in teachers’ guise, planning trouble.

It was right after school and I was looking for my mother’s car, hoping I could go to my “cool” sister Regina’s apartment. Mama wasn’t in her car but on the steps of the convent with her head down, listening to Sister Margaret Marie. Sister Margaret barely hit five feet in height and was the shape of a rubber ball, rosy cheeked with a few wisps of salt and pepper hair just sticking out from her wimple. She and Mama were grinning like loons and I knew something was up. Turned out we were going to run an “errand” that entailed eating Chinese food at three o’clock in the afternoon.

That was a first. I never had Chinese food, let alone gone to a restaurant with a nun. It was one of many firsts. One Saturday, Mama wasn’t home and when she did walk in she was wearing a cover up and a bathing suit. Mama didn’t take off and go sunbathing. In fact, Mama didn’t take off at all. I was a little off balance, and my feeling of vertigo doubled when she told us all about the day she spent with the “sisters.”  Someone had lent their house for the day for the teachers at the Cathedral to “let their hair down.” I was only vaguely aware that nuns were people, let alone that they could let their hair down. This was in the very late sixties, early seventies at best. I was a tow-headed kid who couldn’t stop talking, but the story Mama told us that day had me speechless.

“Did you know Sister Catherine Regina used to be a Rockette?” Mama was breathless. “She dove into the pool and it was like poetry, and then here comes Margaret Marie (Whoa, wait a minute, my Mom was on a first name basis with a nun!), and she just runs like a maniac towards the pool and yells ‘CANNONBALL!’ and torpedoed into the pool!”  My mind was reeling, nuns that could swim, nuns that were dancers, nuns who wore, gasp! Bathing suits! To tell you the truth, I was a bit jealous that Mama had somehow broken into this inner circle of the sisters. She saw them for what they were; dedicated to a life of giving in a way that most of us can’t comprehend, and human just the same.

When school was over for the year, the Sisters would stay in the convent for another week or two, cleaning out the classrooms, and then packing up to go to their Mother House. That was when Sister Margaret Marie and my Mama would sneak away, saying they were running yet more “errands”. Because I was the youngest in my family, I often got to tag along with them. I could sit in the back seat of that old Fury III and listen to them for hours. They talked about their childhoods, school, life; they talked about faith and about God, family and friendship. They were remarkable together.

One time we drove to my sister Elizabeth’s house in Willow Springs. Back then it was as far away from Raleigh as you could get in the eyes of an eleven year-old. On the way we stopped at a country store called Olive’s. The store itself was a large, white, concrete block building, and it sold farm wear and gear in droves. Sister Margaret Marie was like a child at play. She walked the aisles of “Osh Kosh” overalls and “Levi” jeans with wide eyes, feeling the fabric and cooing. She had been brought up in the country and she wanted some overalls to garden in at the Mother House so her habit wouldn’t get dirty. The old timers just stared, all except for Olive, the owner. I often wondered if it was his shape at birth that had earned him his name. He was olive shaped and ripe with enthusiasm behind his counter and he stood larger than life. To say he was a big man would have belittled him. Everything about him was huge, including his kindness. He doffed a make-believe hat when my Mama and Sister Margaret Marie walked in. I heard his sotto whisper to one of the regulars to “straighten up and show some respect, that there is a Sister-Lady.”

When Sister Margaret Marie walked to the counter with two pairs of overalls you could have heard a pin drop. Olive insisted she take them, “on the house,” and Margaret Marie grinned from ear to ear as she blessed him. You would have thought that he had been in an audience with the Pope. It was precious, it was country, it was a little piece of the South at its very best, and it was a moment I won’t forget. My Mama and “the Sister-Lady” got back into the car and Sister Margaret Marie couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful everyone was. I suppose it was in that moment I realized how very wonderful she was. She was personality, a bundle of life in black and white, dedicated and faithful in ways I am still so far from understanding. Most of all, she was my Mama’s very true friend.

When the Mother House called Sister Margaret Marie away to another assignment, I don’t recall hearing either bemoaning the situation. They wrote steady through the years, letters passing back and forth until word came that Sister Margaret Marie was in the infirmary and her prognosis broke my mother’s heart. Years after she passed my mother would still send contributions to the infirmary in Sister Margaret Marie’s name, yet she seldom spoke of her again.

As a kid, I don’t think I quite understood what was going on because of the “uniform” of a nun. Today, holding that still very colorful photo of Sister Margaret Marie in my hands, I’m struck by the power of friendship. It takes all forms, it can come at us from the most unlikely places, and if we’re lucky enough, we pass time reveling in it.

The Dating Game

I always knew the time would come when I would have to sit down with my daughter and have a one-to-one chat about the big wide world of dating, about the games that are played, the feelings involved, and the inevitable interactions of her friends. I did not expect it to come so quickly, I thought I had another couple of years at least, especially as we have only just conquered her school phobia and anxiety issues (admittedly with the help of her counselor, without whom we would still be battling it I am sure). So, you can imagine my schizophrenic attitude towards her when she came home proudly one day and announced she had been asked to be someone's sweetheart.

It sounded so innocent, the word sweetheart, but when I heard the whole story I knew my time was up. Our current mother-daughter relationship was going to have to change up a notch; she was going to need the big girl's mummy advice now. You see, one of her friends had carefully negotiated this invitiation of becoming a sweetheart on my daughter's behalf, but not on her instruction. It seemed the friend was quite happy to be the surrogate sweetheart and, as time went on, she proved it so. I sat back for a while offering gentle words of advice but unfortunately by the time my daughter had gained her confidence, she had also realized that the friend was the one wearing the boys jacket, sitting with her legs on his, and was involved in many a cozy tête-à-tête's with him.

She was lost, trying to make sense of the whole situation. On the one hand, she liked this boy and on the other, she was seeing her friend in a new light, the light of a young woman in the making. My first reaction was to wade in and protect, teach her how to play the games people play but that seemed unfair, she is a nice sweet girl, that is not in her character and, most importantly, she likes her friend a lot. I got my thinking cap on and made a decision, I would help her in another way.

A long time ago, in my professional capacity, I would train adults in the corporate world in the art of understanding human behavior and interactions to get the best result. I also had a vision of teaching teenagers these skills but, as life takes over, there never seemed the right time. I also realized that I had become rusty myself on these issues, after all, I was about to help her draw her weapons and shoot the girl (metaphorically of course). This seemed a perfect opportunity to resurrect the books and start equipping her with the right skills. I need my daughter to understand human behaviors and know how to deal with them and schools just do not do have that on their curriculum. I wanted to make sure that she came out feeling good about herself even if she didn't get the boy.

As it turned out, the boy solved the issue for me. He soon moved on to her friend's friend, and then repeated the pattern over again. The girls realized they were the ones to have been played, played against each other but I am not giving up on my idea. This taste of what is to come was a wakeup call for me. My books are out and I am going to go through them with my daughter one-step at a time. Who knows I may even devise a training plan for teenagers to help them cope and understand human interactions. I am no psychologist, just an individual who thinks that life skills are just as important as algebra and punctuation.

'Tis the Season of the Witch....

Well, summer break has officially started and I have decided that this summer deserves a nickname all its own. Therefore welcome to the Season of the Witch (with many apologies to Donovan for his cool song does deserve better). See I will be imposing rules and chores, explaining responsibility, and requiring duties at a rapid pace and I'm NOT talking about me here. I have two teenagers, one of whom will be deemed old enough to drive by the end of the summer. So somebody explain to me why he's not old enough to drive the weed eater?

Now please don't think that I haven't been doing this all along. They've always had "age appropriate" chores. But I do find myself pushing more and more their way and noticing that I seem to (according to them...but who really trusts what a teenager has to say about work or pleasure) make them do more than some of their peers. Well, too bad for my kids, I say. There simply is no reason that kids who are taller and stronger than me should sit inside in that glorious invention called air conditioning, while I tackle the horror that is our yard. Same thing for the household chores. I'm not raising royalty here.

I just finished reading a Sookie Stackhouse book, "Dead in the Family",  (the book series that True Blood was created from). In this particular one, Alexei, the Russian Tsarevich who was brutally murdered in 1918, had been turned into a vampire. He was a pretty bad vampire and part of the reasoning is that he had been so pampered in real life that he had a very hard time understanding an inability to do what he wants when he wants it. Which sounds chillingly like my teenagers. So in the interest of the future world order...or maybe just so any future in-laws won't constantly be blaming me...'tis the Season of the Witch. Now they better go pick up my broom and start using it...