Monday, June 14, 2010

Repetoire

When I took my Mom to the store, my boys were being buttheads and wouldn't come. That's okay, we had a leisurely lunch. I was thinking about what I posted the other day about understanding my Mom a little better and I wanted to talk to her. I really wanted to know, why should I love you.

I knew all this but we talked about it again, how she grew up in the 50's on a plantation in Cottonport, Louisiana and was taken care of by a nanny named Lightning. She spent a lot of time sitting under the pecan trees. It was like Gone with the Wind. How she never could catch on in school. She was a cute as a button and people told her she looked like a cross between Shirley MacClaine and Elizabeth Taylor. She sang like Doris Day. I remember her costuming at The Toledo Repetoire Theater.

I asked her why she left and she told me, yadda-yadda-yadda. But the way I saw it... It was summer before I turned eight and the last thing I remember is I cut the crap out of my hair and she didn't take it well Etc, etc, I don't remember very clearly but very soon she was gone. Guess who thought they caused this?

Ugh, resentment is a killer. I couldn't even think about this before last year. I want to understand and do the opposite and heal things. I think it was just one more thing she couldn't deal with. Just really bad timing.

Not sticking with trouble was a lesson I shouldn't have rejected out of hand, saying "I'm never going to do that". I really should've kept "giving up" in my repetoire.

So my mom is an undiscovered movie star. As an extremely minor rock star, I can relate to that.

Things will be okay.

1 comment:

sgreerpitt said...

indeed they will. I think all kids believe they are responsible when a parent leaves. Sometimes they even feel that way when a parent dies.