Perspective Is Everything

Dining in a restaurant with my daughter recently, I learned a lesson in perspective.

Since it was two hours past the noon lunch traffic, there were only a couple customers left in the restaurant–us. So it was pretty darn quiet. We spoke across the table in a normal indoor voices. 

They came in laughing, jolly, and bounced me in my seat as they banged into the booth behind me. A young male voice said, “Gee, thanks, man. I really appreciate you helping me pick out these clothes. I look good, don’t you think? I really feel good. I do.”

Mm. Now that’s just the kind of thing that might cause a curious person to turn in their seat. But I didn’t. Instead, I bore down on the wells of my daughter’s eyes, hoping to fish a reflection from the pool of her pupils as I wondered just what had made this young man.

“Did the eagle land?” I asked her.

“Huh?”

“Did the goose lay the golden egg?”

“Mom! What in the world are you talk–”

I shook my head to shoosh her, “Never mind.”

She chatted while I stared, searching, searching into her contact lens for just a tiny hint. I could tell I made her uncomfortable when she adjusted her eyebrows at me, shook her head, and shrugged. I knew what she was thinking: What’d I say? Now what’d I do?

I stretched my neck toward her, intentionally, no longer a partner in chit-chat, unable to explain how caught up I had become in that voice behind me–so earnest, excited, grateful. C’mon–you’d have done the same. She chattered, unobservant, while I took long draws off my iced tea and searched her eyes.

“I’ve never felt this good in anything I’ve ever worn,” he was saying. “Do you think anybody’ll notice?”

Hel-lo!

I’m not a clothes person. I slap on jeans and dig for a shirt–my uniform. Most of my wardrobe works great in the garden. How could those bugs and birds and plants recognize me any other way? When have I ever dressed for success? One pair of jeans is pretty much like the next, right? Sure, I know cool threads make a person stand taller. Everybody likes to feel they look good in their clothes. But–what?

I didnt’ get up from the table to go to the ladies room; I didn’t drop my napkin and turn circles to retrieve it.  And I certainly didn’t flip around–I’ve outgrown that habit. But these guys had energized me like a fly to a bug zapper.

They were busy eating, talking, laughing–enthusiastic and loud, discussing how clothes make a person, how lucky he was that his friend took off work that day so they could shop.

We finished our meal. I stood, stretched, and as inconspicuously as I could, slowly turned.

I don’t know what I thought I’d see–I’d never finished that scene out in my head. But sitting in the booth was a young teen, his eyes obscured under a snow-white hat that was a cross between the kind Robin Hood wears and that of a Miami bread baker. It could’ve been the ceiling light hanging over the table that shined down on him, but the hat kinda glowed, reflecting his white vacation-style shirt –the kind guys wear/buy when they visit another country, except he’d tucked it into black checkered pants. Yes. A white belt wrapped around all nineteen inches of his waist and matched his, you guessed it, white shoes–not the athletic type.  A feather of a moustache laid across his young lip like paint-by-number.

He was just a kid, and I know kids love funky hats. Heck, I love funky hats. But, I’m sorry, he looked like a shyster. The mother in me wanted to holler, “Do you know the first time you reach for your hat, YOU’RE GONNA HAVE FINGER PRINTS ALL OVER IT? BEGINNING TODAY? He couldn’t know how badly I wanted to wipe that smear off his young lip with my spitted-finger and send him to the bathroom to wash.

But I am shamed. How is his coolness any different than when I had that favorite robe? the quilted one I wouldn’t throw away? the one I’d slashed off at the knees? the same one I finally had to hold together with safety pins because my mother didn’t sew–even buttons–so why would she replace a zipper? when I seemed happy and well adjusted, enough?

And how about when I ironed my straight hair straighter? That’s a sight to behold–laying your hair across an ironing board while ramming a steaming hot iron toward your face. My hair would be so straight the only part sticking out was my ears, which never tucked into any hair style. And didn’t I cut my jeans off into shorts, like everybody, which had to be washed until the unhemed leg parts fell into longs strings? It was important to get that right.

How’s this guy’s look any different than wardrobes from the 70’s –yup, our guys wore white belts, white shoes, and white polyester slacks. And not only did their pockets show through, but when they’d sweat in the Texas heat, or it poured rain, their underwear did too.

As a parent, I didn’t lie to my kids when they began to dress themselves and asked, How’s this look? They didn’t always like the answer, but they could count on the truth, even if it was my truth, which didn’t mean they’d go back to their room to change. Favorite is favorite, even if it’s the favorite plaid shirt mingled with fav-tri-colored, ripped camouflage pants, or best purple socks with fav-orange and green trick ‘r treat shorts. I had to remind myself, Hey, didn’t I buy ’em?

I can’t wait until my grandkids get old enough to take hat shopping. I can’t wait until they ask, MiMi–how do I look?

So Nice To Be Needed, Wanted or Both

Being needed is very different from being wanted. I’m kind-of opinionated with my kids, and my opinions are not necessarily wanted, but my skills very much needed and the two are stuck together. Like, have you noticed that a working mom’s sense of humor is always the first to go?

So I was needed, and called, and I packed up my opinions and we all took off for the hour drive to my daughter’s house. My work-like-a-fool-from-home-by-computer daughter needed a fill-in because she had both a dental appointment and an eye exam, scheduling everything the same day.

I played with my one-year old granddaughter, squealing right alongside her. We’d go outside and take our toys with us–they look so different in the sunlight. Swaying tree branches caught our attention, and the chirping birds made us look up, like it was the most unusual sound of the year.

She knows me well, my daughter; she’s more like me than she realizes. It makes me smile. I know that a mother’s work is never finished, just recycles to another day. Jes knows I can’t just stand around on my head like a brick, and when I’m not playing or feeding or changing my grand baby, I need something to do.

So when I arrive, I’m not at all surprised by the laundry scattered across the bed, like a welcome mat, in a spare bedroom. I know she probably stayed up late getting it all washed up. It’s true–I need to stay busy, and folding clothes and putting them in their places is the kind of thing I do well. I match and fold and hang what seems ninety-seven articles of clothes, not counting socks, and carry them to the appropriate rooms where I lay them lovingly in their nests.

I fold everybody’s socks into tight little wads just like they like them, and tri-fold boxers and tee shirts, then poke them into their drawers so that my son-in-law can pull them out one by one like sticky notes.

Roger always knows when I’ve been there–Oh, I have undershorts in my drawer. Your mom’s been here. Or, Oh, the laundry basket‘s empty–there’s no clothes in the dryer, the towels are in the linen closet–your Mom must have been here; Oh, my slacks are hanging on their hangers; Oh, there’s a bed under all those clothes! Oh, I don’t have to stand at the foot of that bed just to dress for work in the morning, peck around for two socks that match; Oh, how I love my mother-in-law. . .”

Okay, okay, I’m embellishing!

Jes left for her appointment. My laundry done, the baby sleeping, I looked around for some other busy-task I might take on. I noticed a little dust on the furniture, and figured I’d do that. I couldn’t find a rag, so I peeled off a few paper towels and dusted and whistled like the gal on the commercial who makes hiring her so appealing.

Then I got to the television/stereo cabinet. Hm, I thought, what would that commercial gal do? Maybe I should leave that alone. What if I accidentally hit a button on the remote? or DVD? and changed a station to something like classical instrumental banjo, or Scottish jigs? Would Roger know? Would he!

Still, the dusty cabinet beckoned and I came perilously close to swiping my finger along it–my mothering, testy finger reached out. Then I remembered James did that to me once. He couldn’t resist drawing a short, thick line in the dust. I had decided we’d both learn something from that lesson: you can’t make me! 

I left his finger swipe there for a week–we both passed it fifty times each day. Then I calmed down, and very sincerely suggested that if he wiped his finger in the dust like that ever again, please make sure he got it all. I showed him where the dust cloths were kept. 

I walked away.

Then my sweet little grand baby woke up, and with her pretty cheeks puffed out from her wide grin, a light of surprise shining in her eyes, she showed me that she wanted me, even if, today, she didn’t need me.