I gave my mother a picture book that I made for her birthday. Pictures of her as a young woman, our family life in Vermont with Dad, my sister and I as small children. It made me happy that she was happy to look at it. I inherited all maudlin musings from my mother, and you would think she would be sentimental about the past, but she's not. Visiting her house for years, there were no photos on the walls, no fistful of pictures shoved into the back of a drawer, nothing. But she travelled with her second husband, and they started to "plaque" travel mementos, followed by ensemble shots of them with work collegues (as a slight snickering homage to "careers"), all hung in the vestibule to the back door. Then my step-sister, followed by step-brother died tragically, and their pictures made it to the wall. Pictures of themselves as young people... it probably took ten years before my sister and I made it to the wall (my best friend, a red-head who my mother coveted as the perfect pseudo-scot daughter) got to the wall five years before I did. I sent my mother a large print of a photograph where I didn't look half bad (being a largely and large unphotogenic person, that says something). She cropped it (didn't like my framing), and it was mounted and finally hung, ten plus years after the gallery started.
A lot of people have been asking me why I write a "public" blog. I assure them no-one is reading it, and that it's my vestibule hallway to the backdoor, with some textual embellishments. Parts of my private person invariably come through; joy, estrangements, resentments, fears, desires, but to the person that wanders by this hallway I'm just one more mincing voice.
Here's Mum in my hallway.
Oh, my mother was a knitter, is a knitter. She started one of the arans that I finished, which my sister stole from me, which I don't have a picture of. She's not a very good dancer. I must have gotten the hip action from my Dad. My mother isn't or wasn't really a stay-at-home and knit kind of gal, so I'm not sure what to make of her knitting urges. I think they're insomnia related, post Letterman, Conan O'Brien, paid advertising, 3am before the newspaper gets delivered, wander from kitchen to den, worry rising, sort of knitting. She has made some amazing cabled afghans, items for which I currently don't have the patience to do myself.
Different knitters, different tension. Happy Birthday Mum.
Here's Mum in my hallway. Oh, my mother was a knitter, is a knitter. She started one of the arans that I finished, which my sister stole from me, which I don't have a picture of. She's not a very good dancer. I must have gotten the hip action from my Dad. My mother isn't or wasn't really a stay-at-home and knit kind of gal, so I'm not sure what to make of her knitting urges. I think they're insomnia related, post Letterman, Conan O'Brien, paid advertising, 3am before the newspaper gets delivered, wander from kitchen to den, worry rising, sort of knitting. She has made some amazing cabled afghans, items for which I currently don't have the patience to do myself.
