I have this writing assignment that I have to do. It’s way overdue. In fact the course ended. Still, I want to do the assignment. My teacher is a friend and amazing writer herself. She has been overly patient with me. Maybe I need a swift kick in the rear to get it done. I WANT to get it done. I just can’t seem to do it.
I think I’m stuck on the prompt. The focus of the class is using the experience of parenthood as a framework for writing. The particular prompt I’m stuck on is “hope.” It seems too big. It seems too vague. How on earth do I even poke a stick at this one?
I imagine that the idea is to form some sort of concrete response to the prompt as it applies to my son. I tried this approach, but it seemed stilted and dishonest. Yes, I have lots of hopes for him, but they all came out as a kind of bland pablum. I couldn’t bring any passion to the piece. It worried me.
Am I a bad mother? Do I truly believe the things I wrote? Why wasn’t there any fire to the piece? It could have been written by any parent for any child. It didn’t seem connected to me or my son at all. In fact, it seemed as impersonal as a piece of trendy wall art picked up from the local craft store. You know the ones with the pithy sayings? Of course you do. You may even have them in your home. If you do, I’m sorry for not agreeing with your design aesthetic. Live, Laugh, Love. Yeah, right. If only it were that easy. Some days it just isn’t.
What it boils down to is this, I hope he knows, really knows deep in his core, that I love him and that I’ve always done the best I could for him. I hope he understands that although I mess up in a hundred different ways every single day, I believe that the choices I make are ones that will ultimately help him to be a successful person. I hope he figures out all the stupid stuff that life throws at him, and I hope he manages, somehow, to get his grades up so he has as many options for his future as possible. I hope he understands that he has options. Maybe that’s not personal enough, but it feels pretty personal to me.
I hope that boy grows to be a man that the boy can admire. I hope he remembers his worth and his sense of kindness and his playfulness. I hope he navigates acne and braces and learning to drive and making smart choices without too many permanent scars. I hope his life is rich and fulfilling. I hope he loves and is loved deeply. I know, it’s starting to sound sappy again. I can’t help it. I love that boy. I hope, no matter what comes his way, he always remembers that.
I guess I really was in a good mood on Saturday while I was shopping with my mother. I must have been, because this particular question didn’t elicit the response in me that it might have at any other time.
Let me set the stage. I was in a lovely fitting room in a lovely department store. I was wearing a dress with a fantastic cut made from a gorgeous fabric. It was a dress designed to show off curves, and it did.
The problem is that I have curves in the wrong places. They talk about “apple” and “pear” shaped figures, but I’m more of a honeydew. I carry a lot of weight around my waist, and I’m about as big front to back as I am side to side.
So there I was in this really pretty dress, deciding how I felt about it, when mom comes up with, “do you wear Spanx?”
I laughed and told her that Spanx wasn’t going to make any difference for me. She went on to tell me how wonderful they were. Like I said, I must have been in a good mood, because not a word of sarcasm crossed my lips.
I could have told her that wearing Spanx for me, if they even came in my size (which I sincerely doubt), would be like placing a band-aid over stab wound. It would be like bailing out a ship with a teaspoon. It would be like building the great pyramids with lego bricks. It would be like harnessing up mice to pull a chariot. It would be like writing a novel using rubber stamps for each letter. It would be like digging a canal with a toothpick. Need I go on?
As always, I’m sure she meant well, but Spanx? Really? Oh well, I guess hope springs eternal.
Last summer I had a horrible shopping experience with my mother. We were clothing shopping for me, and it was the most demoralizing, degrading, unpleasant experience you could imagine within the confines of an upscale shopping mall. Seriously, it sucked. I felt lower than a rat that day. Lower than a flea on a rat. I swore that would be the last time I went clothing shopping with my mom. I was done.
It was nothing intentional, I’m sure. It’s just that when my mom was my age she weighed approximately 110 pounds. She currently laments the fact that she has an extra 5 pounds that she just can’t get rid of. She is a tiny person. I am not. I am a very large person. I am fat and have been fat for a long time. I was bigger and heavier than my mother by the time I was nine years old. I am adopted. I am different.
Fast forward to last Thursday. Mom called and asked if I wanted to do something “fun” on Saturday. This is a trick question. I always want to do something fun, but mom’s idea of fun and mine are often quite different. What kind of fun? We went back and forth and settled on a movie of her choice as the “fun” activity (I think it has subtitles). Great. The other option was shopping for a special occasion dress for me. Nope, I wasn’t going there.
I love my mother. I really do. We are just really different from one another. Our likes and dislikes, our outlooks on life, and our personalities are at odds with one another. Still, she is my mother, and I want to spend time with her. I was ready to willing to sit through some weird artsy movie (that honestly I might have loved under different circumstances) when it occurred to me that I would have to turn off my phone for two hours in the middle of a Saturday.
Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but since I’m trying to sell my house realtors call me as a courtesy before coming to show it. What if someone called and I didn’t answer? Would they skip my property and move on to another without a second thought? I wasn’t willing to take that risk.
I called mom with my dilemma and she immediately brought up her first plan, dress shopping. Oh goody.
My sweetheart gave me a stern talking to about how she is who she is, and she doesn’t mean all the mean things she says and does, and she’s old and set in her ways, so suck it up and deal. Something like that. It was probably more tactful than that, but that’s what I heard.
I decided to put on a good attitude and see where it took me. I picked her up and suggested that we try the Macy’s near my house, where I’ve had some success in the past. Nope, too far away. We would go to the Macy’s near her house. Sure, that would be great. She insisted that we park under Nieman Marcus, because she always walks through Nieman Marcus. As we entered the store, we immediately headed to the fragrance counter. I fought back the urge to sneeze as mother made a bee line for her favorite scent. That task taken care of, we headed to Macy’s.
We found the women’s department tucked away in an obscure corner (as usual) and quickly walked though the racks. There was not one item in that store that I wanted to try on. There was not one item that my mom wanted me to try on. We were in complete agreement. Amazing.
We left and mom announced that soon she would be ready for a coffee and a chocolate covered biscotti. She thought we should go to Dillard’s (next to Nieman Marcus) then get the coffee at the opposite end of the mall. My sense of logic prevented me from getting on board with that timeline. We would do this strategically, first the snack, then back to Dillard’s. She agreed and we headed to the coffee place. On the way we passed Godiva, and mom pulled me in for a sample. I did not argue. After that we turned the corner and headed down a very long, very busy mall corridor. At last we reached the end and the coffee place. We got our pick me up and spent some time people watching. It was fun. Really.
As we finished, mom suggested we go into Nordstrom’s, since we were right there. I have never purchased anything from Nordstrom’s. Ever. But true to my good, agreeable attitude, I said sure. I didn’t even know if they had a plus sized department. They do. It’s really nice. And it isn’t crazy expensive. We chose several items and made ourselves comfortable in the huge, beautiful fitting room. We enjoyed complimentary water bottles and good conversation, and mom didn’t make that “I just stepped in something” face at me even once. We found the dress, and it was a size smaller than I expected to buy. We also found two blouses off the clearance rack that mom insisted on buying. I was tickled.
The only thing they didn’t have was a suitable sweater or jacket to wear with the dress in the synagogue (it’s for my niece’s Bat Mitzvah), so off to Dillard’s we went. Jackpot! They had so many beautiful dresses and separates, and even two options for my jacket/sweater. Oh, and lots of their stock was on sale! I could have bought five dresses, which, if you are a woman my size, is unheard of. I was blown away. I was thrilled. I was dumbstruck. The whole experience turned out to be a lot of fun, and I came home with several very nice new clothing items.
I guess the lesson here is never give up on your family, even when you think you’ve reached your breaking point. Through conversation, a pleasant attitude, and the addition of well timed chocolate and coffee, we had a wonderful day.
BulgingButtons 