full circle, with music
Friday, July 24 To appreciate the irony of meeting my 60-year-old parents at The Grand Targhee Music Festival last weekend, where my mother showed up wearing jeans and a hippy-style peasant blouse, you have to know a bit about the road my parents and I have traveled together, and the significance of concerts.
My mom was married and pregnant with me at 19. As you might guess of a couple so young they still could’ve been wearing retainers, things didn’t work out so well with my mom and biological dad (who remains a friend). So I experienced the flower-child late 60s and early 70s alongside my newly single mom — going to smoke-filled parties with her, hanging out with incense-burning friends…and getting dragged to concerts.
Ask me what I remember about the Leon Russell concert when I was two-and-a-half, and here’s my review: TOO FREAKIN’LOUD, LEON! I was sitting near the front with my mom, and a group of her friends were seated several rows back. Desperate to escape the noise, I wandered back there with them, plopped myself down on a man’s lap (whom my mom and I didn’t really know, except that he was friends with her friends), fell asleep, and the two of them met and are here to tell the story as they celebrate 37 years of marriage this month. Yes, yes, it true: My dad fell in love with me and within two years agreed to marry my mom so that he could adopt me.
Mom, dad and me, circa 1970.
Or something like that.
It could be written off as a warm and fuzzy story, except that there were some rough years between there and here, which perhaps makes it even more poignant. Rough years between my mom and me, rough years between my parents. Times when both my mom and me would have looked anyone in the eye and said, “I don’t like her and by the way, I can barely stand to be in the same room with her.” Years when my parents yelled and fought and I’d say to my mom, “Don’t talk to my dad like that!” or crossed my arms and threatened,“If you guys get a divorce, I’m going with him.”
Ouch.
To anyone experiencing the heartache of a relationship with a teenage daughter gone sour, this is what I have to say: Hang in there, and be the best mom you can be under the circumstances. Maybe you’re a little broken, maybe she’s a bit broken, but chances are, things will come around when the time is right. When I had babies and when I had to admit to myself and the world that my first marriage had failed, I reached for my mom and she was there.
Still groovy girls: Mom and me at The Grand Targhee Music Festival, July '09.
And most timely for me right now in the early years of a second marriage, this is what I’ve observed from my parents: It’s possible to want a divorce, possible to yell and fight and make others wish to God you would divorce, and yet hang in there and find better days together.
When I’ve asked my parents what got them past those rough years, they tell me friendship. “It’s really annoying when we fight,” my mom told me this past weekend. “Especially if I have something I can’t wait to tell him, but then I remember we’re not speaking and I have to make up just so I can talk to him again.”
What I see more than ever is that surviving the death of parents, a heart attack, and dealing with an addictive son has been glue rather than divisive for my parents because of their friendship. And after 37 years, romance is found in the practical details of life.
Like cleaning up dog crap.
A few weeks ago, my mom’s beloved smiling pit bull, Jessie, who is so old and senile she no longer has control of her bowels, was sleeping with my parents when she pooped all over their bed.
“I was sort of finger-painting with it in my sleep,” my mom said, “Except with my feet.” Now I can tell you without even asking my dad, that he would probably be thrilled if Jessie wasn’t in bed with them these days. And yet. And yet, there he was, up at four in the morning with my mom over the tub, scrubbing caked on poo off her feet, sharing a good laugh with her over the utter grossness of it. Just another day of dealing with shit together.
Honestly, I can’t think of anything sweeter and more romantic.
So here’s to loud music mom and dad; here’s to love and friendship and 37 years. Here’s to you both. Happy anniversary.
Reader Comments (2)
Awwww. (And ewwwww! Poor Jessie.) I heard something on the radio the other day about indicators of good long-lasting relationships. Humor was high on the list. Which is a key part of friendship. If you can still laugh while cleaning crap off your feet then you must be doing ok. I am very glad you picked out my big brother because now I have a fabulous SIL, beautiful niece, wonderful nephews and all of the rest of you in my family. I love spending time with all of you because we always end up laughing, even with all the shit. So here's to you, Leon Russell and S&T for holding it together for 37 (really???) years. Nice pictures, by the way.
What a great post! Beautifully written and felt.