Mom and Mondrian

I have described my mother as the most practical woman alive. She has never wasted her time with whining, complaining, or materialistic foolishness.I describe her that way because it is true. But do not get her wrong, despite having married a mountain man, she herself is an artist.
She does not bring up artist’s names or offer nasally critiques using words like philistine or vulgarian. She doesn’t try to critique anything at all really- that would be silly. She is not silly.
What she would do is be the valedictorian of her high school but not attend the graduation.While her husband spent time fly fishing on the Provo River she was volunteering as a docent in a museum.

This amuses me because docent is probably the most high-brow word she has ever used.

Legend has it that the only time she didn’t get an A in college was in pottery. And that was only because the professor refused to give an A to anyone who wasn’t a fine art major. Mom was in education. Because when you start college after having already had six children, going into education is practical.
But inside that practical person, that education major about to become an elementary school teacher, is and was my mom. My mom, the 18 year old who hopped on a ship to Europe so she could marry a soldier working as a linguist in Germany. The young woman who spent her honeymoon touring Europe visiting art museums and castle galleries. The young woman who when she chooses a car, picks a yellow convertible MG Roadster.

The woman, who once retired and living in one of the most rural places imaginable, builds a structure that on the outside looks like a one story Lincoln log wood shop, but on the inside, is a studio fashioned to look like you have stepped inside Mondrian’s “Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow”.

 

Who Would do Such a Thing?

So why would anyone take the type of job that when the entire industry is honored, it is done so by allowing a person the luxury of not having to do that job?

Such is motherhood.

It is a sorority with the most severe initiation ritual ever devised, so much so that millions have died while pledging, yet a fresh new batch of applicants sign up every day.

If the initiation ritual for admittance to motherhood were replicated as a sort of guaranteed gateway to a million dollars, we would likely have less millionaires than we do now.  It just wouldn’t be worth it. Yet not only do people sign up without the promise of a cash prize, but many pay huge sums to get in the club. Medical science has devoted some its best minds to the cause of allowing women the joy of enduring huge amounts of pain for little to no thanks, other than that one day a year when they are honored by being allowed to act like they aren’t in the club for a day.

My mom before.

Now parenting is another story. One need not go through this initiation ritual to gain the title of parent. No, instead the intense pain of birthing labor is stretched out over 18 years in the eyes of the law, but in reality will likely last till you finally graduate into the grave.

My mom after.

There are those who join motherhood but decline to continue on to parent, there are those who never gave birth who then elect to parent, and then there are those who do both. Those who do both are insane, illogical, and the world owes them an inexhaustible debt.

I’m glad I hit the mother lottery. Come to think of it. I hit the lottery twice.

I Met Her in Church

I met her in church.

She stood at the podium and gave the most heartfelt and irreverent talk I had ever heard. Well…I’m not sure if it was the most heartfelt, but I am sure she was smokin’ hot.Thirteen years and two kids later she is still smokin’ hot.

She has a kind of star power that other people (me) hang around like groupies, hoping to catch a little of her leftover glow. If you meet her once you will know what I mean. You don’t forget.

Have you ever bumped into someone on the street and re-introduced yourself? They smile, shake your hand, and nod their head while the brow furrows as they rack their memory trying to drum up the connection?

Not with her.

People see her again after who knows how long, and as she recounts how they are acquainted, they just smile, nod. They don’t have to think because they remember exactly where they met.

She’s that kind of person.

She is a Mom.

People who have had that job watch her in amazement. She is good at it. Good like the unfair kind of good. And she does it her way.

That’s how she does everything.

While pregnant she read every book imaginable. When the kid showed up she brought certified experts into our home to consult us. She has a degree from an accredited university on childhood development  She watches, studies, learns, and then goes ahead and does it her own way.

If I, or any of our kids, ever reach any real success it will be because we stood near enough to her for some of “it” to rub off. Reflected glow. Second hand awesomeness.

We are all very lucky. I’m surprised she tolerates us.

She doesn’t have time, or rather doesn’t waste time, on foolishness. Now make no mistake, she knows how to “act a fool”, in fact acting a fool allowed her to meet Oprah (twice), but rather she has no patience for gossip, pettiness, or social jockeying.

Unless you are Oprah. Then she is a triple crown quality jockey.

God is the only one who can tell her what to do. She will listen to him, and even if it is like a pouting child forced to clean her room. She cleans it.

Most of us just put on our headphones and ignore God. We sit in our messy rooms and play childish video games pretending we don’t know God asked us to clean up this mess.

But not her. She does it.

She doesn’t do it for you. She doesn’t do it for me. she just does.

And she looks good doing it.

I am thirteen years in love.