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Scrolling through my newsfeed, I notice March 16 has been an important day for so many. Announcement of an addition to our own family in 2012 (and 1 week later discovered it was twins), birth of baby Remy Elizabeth Ann, and an adoption. And a sweet young lady I know, Miss Kelsey Ray, is right now in the hospital, quite possibly in the throes of labor. Surely there have been many more sacred moments on this very day, too. My own husband today said farewell to a friend he has known practically all his life. Do you ever wonder, 'Why today, God? What makes this day deserving of such miracles, of such events that transpire and work together and evolve, sure as the earth spins?' To everything, there is a season. And, while some may not agree, it is my belief that for everything, there is a reason.
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I have gone back there a few times, to the house where we last lived. Most times, I would just pull up to the curb in front and wait for a few minutes. I would observe the scene and try to imagine my life as the version that included her. The first several times I'd gone, I was 16 and had just begun to legally drive. The house looked the same, with white-washed brick and stellar gray wood trim, charming prep school shutters. That magic-appearing octagon window I remember her calling the professionals in to install, just because she loved it and wanted it in her bathroom. It was stained glass, that STOP sign window, and it looked magnificent, just like anything appeared that she ever had a hand in. Her Clinique there on the sink in the master bath, lined up according to size rather than just the 3 steps, just like steps leading to...somewhere. Anywhere. Plush nude carpet beneath, it was warm beige sand and I'd laugh and dig my toes down deeper. It was, after all, high pile and glorious. A step up from the last place we lived. And then, the typical smell of my mother: Redken hair spray, the Cover Girl camphor aroma, and some hint of L'Occitane en Provence that could never quite be pinned down. A can of Tab on the nightstand, always with a straw because she was a lady and that was how ladies like my mother drank Tab, with some level of abbreviated caution. She'd had the sod laid in standard lined notebook fashion, evergreen and evermore. It was the yard where we would later park our bicycles and run screaming through underground sprinklers, her with her Flashdance off-shoulder tops that let her shoulders be kissed by the sun. In her closet, Mary-Ruby business suits tailored just for her, in her signature color of any purple one can imagine. Lilac, lavender, orchid, plum. Why, the Color of Royalty, don't you know, purple? We even had one matching linen dress suit complete with pencil skirt and fitted blazer. She was the Mom, I the Daughter. We were going to take on the world, right after she french braided my hair. We had a bay window in the kitchen, and I loved to perch on the cushioned bench there and look out at the birds as she made breakfast or thumbed through Enquirer as we shared a bowl of popcorn and ate M&Ms.
My bedroom was a real little girl's retreat - white wooden furniture with golden trim, canopy bed, desk and chair for when I would start first grade in August, and a bureau for all my husky clothes, all for me, just waiting. The women at Sears and Dillards liked to ask my mother what size I wore when we would go shopping for jeans. 'Size 7,' she'd say, and they would immediately come back with 'Okay, size 7 husky. Be right back,' and wander off to fetch me something that would fit. I had a Dream House where Barbie lived, TV, and stereo with an 8-track where I'd pop in Alabama and put on lip sync shows just for her pleasure. Never mind that it was only men in that band, I did not care. We also had Michael Jackson's Thriller and of course, Crystal Gayle and Silvia! The world, it seemed, belonged to us and it was there for the taking. She was the Mom, I was the Daughter. Fearing I would mess up the magazine-styled appeal, I never wanted to sleep in my own bed. During the day I'd play in there, but come bedtime I would falter and convince myself there was a clown in my closet, a scary clown. I knew down deep that if I messed up the blankets they would never be quite as perfect, ever again. So, I slept with my mother. She never seemed to mind really, and to this day I still wonder if she had intuition about what was to come. You know, The End. After I was sure she was asleep, I'd quick! match my breath with hers and put my leg gently up against hers so that I would know when she woke up and left my side. That blessed reassurance of all that a mother is supposed to be and what we, as women, were created to be to our precious babies. If she moved, I figured I should by golly know about it. My measures of air matched hers, and it comforted me greatly to think we paralleled also in this most basic physiological process, breathing. She was the Mom, I was the Daughter. Then, it happened. On my last visit there, I did something dangerous, like a sin. Feeling new legs emerge, I fumbled out of the white convertible paid for because of her tragic demise, a short-changed trade-off. I stumbled over the concrete curb there, marked with our address, 185296, painted and weathered again. I knocked, noticing gnome statues and a yard flag in the flowerbed, nothing at all that my mother would have allowed. Easter eggs in pastel suggestions of the rainbow and glued to a skewer, stuck into the soil between the small white rocks. Indeed, a stark contrast to her black wrought iron chairs and chaise out back on the deck, a rather obstinate and final choice of furniture for such a young woman to own. Soon, she appeared before me, this woman of about 50. She smiled. I smiled, held out my hand. Please, I thought. Please, trust me. Let me trust you. It was now or never. I braced myself, took in a deep pocket of air, smiling even wider. Even as I smiled, all I really wanted was to collapse into her arms. 'There, there,' she'd say. 'Sweetie, your momma is in the kitchen now, making that tuna casserole she loves. Come right on in here.' ***To be continued*** Tonight, I'm trying so hard to write, but it's not happening. It's just...not. Fumbling to find music, to find my groove. I had forgotten how this feels, this block sensation. More like a job rather than a labor of love, of passion. One minute, creativity and excitement surges through veins at the thought of where to go to next. Then. Then! Nothing. Nada. Breaks squeal. It's such a let-down, too, when ideas won't let you catch them long enough to bring them to life.
If tonight were another time in my life altogether, I would take this moment and go for a Drive. Like other humans, though, I am a creature of habit and so I rarely get out after dark. Back before days of children and dishes and 3 loads of laundry every day easily, I would have rolled the top back, popped in a mix tape, put on my life belt, and started the engine to clear my head and heart. You see, during the process of conjuring up a piece, I really do take it to heart. I think about something, put my song of choice on loop, on repeat, and let it transport me back to a specific moment or time in space, and let 'er rip. It isn't always as smooth as I'd like, so I'll go back occasionally and revise, but that is how I usually create. The first path is not always the smoothest to travel, so you put it in reverse and roll back over it again, slower and ever so careful of the pot holes and bumps. Too, just like a painter gone mad, the scene slowly unfolds into action and before we know it, Eureka, we HAVE something. Whether it is recognizable to others, though, is what transforms lives, even our very own. Identifying with others through art is, and has been over the course of thousands of years, a very thorough and intimate subject over which to bond. Just why do you think there are book clubs? Those women aren't there to read books foremost, of course they are not. They are there for the connections they feel with like-minded individuals. It goes like this: You see something, they see something, and BOOM, an instantaneous familiarity is suddenly there, but not quite an elephant in the room. A shared experience. A bond. Art as whatever medium, music of whatever genre, cuisine from every continent, fashions of every era. It's all art, and our connections with one another in our quest for camaraderie are merely the brush strokes that bring it all together. Up close, it does not look like much. Back off a little and observe, and it all makes sense. Finally, something clicks. It is as if you recognize yourself again. As I write this, my mom would have been 63 or 64. This picture of her was taken in high school. She died at age 28. I was 7. I miss her every day and regret that my children will never know her except through pictures like this one, and what things I can manage to remember about her. I wonder how she'd look if she were still alive. I think about how different my life would be now, had she never gone that day. She thought about not going, you know. She did! There's nothing I can do to change what happened and I know it's not my fault but...at the end of the day it is what it is. I loved my mom so much! She loved the colors purple and brown! She liked to watch Dynasty, probably not unlike any other woman her age back in '83 or '84. She took me to Molly Murphy's a lot! When my aunts Penny, Betsy, or Kay would come stay the weekend, we would all go and it was so much fun. We'd eat, laugh, dance, do the Hustle AND the Car Wash, and laugh if anyone had to go pee, because you know what THAT meant! We went to Woodland Hills a LOT! And we traveled! And I had a beautiful canopy bedroom suite and my very own stereo system in my very own room! And she liked elephants. My Grace likes elephants. My Grace Ann looks so much like my mother it jolts me every time I look at her. Jolts me to the core. I know there is a God, because of my Grace. Before, during some especially trying years and struggling to come to terms with things I'd been told, I doubted God, I doubted His love for me, and I doubted my own self-worth. Not anymore. Thank you, Lord, for lending my mom to me for the 7 years that you did. I sure do miss her. My great grandma told me when she died that God had picked a beautiful flower for his bouquet in Heaven. I can't hear this song on the radio without choking back tears. Once when we were in downtown Kansas City, a homeless man tried to climb in the front seat of her Oldsmobile. He opened the door on the passenger side and started to settle right down onto the plush taupe seat. I was in the back, of course no seat belt, just hanging out! You know what she did? That woman was stopped at a red light and as soon as this guy tried to plant his fanny in her car, she sped off like a getaway car. I will never forget it! I don't know whatever happened to that person, but as a kid I remember looking out the back window, seeing his outline grow smaller and smaller in the distance. Looking back now, what a crazy/funny day! Wow! Alas, I will see her again someday. And we shall pick up our shenanigans right where we left off. 
 >>>>>>>>>>> Immediately following Senior '95 Assembly. Left to Right: Melody Wood, Elizabeth Hancock Watts, Brandy Sudderth Mulliken, Tisha Baxter  >>>>>>>>>>>>> In Chasity's room, walls plastered with magazine pull-outs of cute boys. Left to Right: Elizabeth Hancock Watts, Chasity Anders-Lucas  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< One of my Senior pictures, Class of '95, Nowata High School. We were the Ironmen. Football games, pep rallies, crazy times during open campus lunches, Chinese fire drills, cruising Main, parking at the old Sonic, sneaky waves at our crushes with just 1 finger raised in a casual "hello..." :-) My friend Chasity Facebooked me this picture while she was dying of a brain tumor. She died a few months after sending this to me. Chasity is SO very missed, along with several others: Ryan Green (whom I had a HUGE crush on back then), Alicia Williams, Troy Liston. Gone but never forgotten, friends.  >>>>>>>>>>>> Left to Right: Jamie Puckett and Elizabeth Hancock Watts, taking it all the way back to gap teeth, big glasses, big hair, and maroon Nowata Ironmen Sr. '95 name jackets. <3 Y'all, if you are reading this and have some great pictures of us that I can post here, please send them to me at: [email protected] or through Facebook. |
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