The Music (Mother, May I? class, day 4)

When my younger sister, Elia, was four, she met Emily Hill, also four, whose parents taught art at the university in my hometown. The Hill family soon moved, but not until after all of us became best friends with all of them. None of us ever again lived in the same town, but our bonds have only strengthened, and, more than 30 years in, we still spend holidays, weddings, hard times and happy ones together.

My Dad and Jim (the Hill patriarch) go camping each year, have a “tickle for Dickel” when they get together, and the eight of us once made and ate nine pies over the course of one Thanksgiving.

My parents listened to the the Oldies, 60s and 70s tunes they grew up loving and, even though the 80s and 90s were “my” and my sister’s music, we always knew that our parents’ soundtracks were infinitely better. I still have Sam Cooke, Aretha, Mary Wells, Judy Collins, the Supremes, Stones and so forth on my main playlist.

We used to have epic dance parties, without the Hills and with them. Sugar, Sugar, and Windy never failed to get us grooving, and just when we thought our pounding hearts would expire from the intense cardio, Smokey Robinson would start crooning The Tracks of My Tears, our pace would slow and we could catch our breaths.

My mom and Elia loved Sonny & Cher’s I Got You Babe and, after a concerted, joint effort at deception, convinced Emily Hill that Mom was the oboist who'd played the critically important oboe background - the pitched 'punh-punh'- throughout the song. Mom had been in the recording studio with Sonny & Cher! With an oboe! An instrument she had never and has never held in her life!

Emily believed them for years, and I doubt that when in the same house, when I Got You Babe played, Mom ever failed to pop up “punh-punh’ing” oboistically.

In 2010, Emily Hill got married, and Mom and Elia planned to perform I Got You Babe during the reception. I was given the job of sitting offstage but in clear sight to manage the flashcards, should nerves shoot blanks into their memories.

By the time we were up, I’d had plenty of champagne and was feeling festive as all get out. I sat down with the giant posterboards of carefully printed lyrics and felt in control and collected as the opening beats strummed.

They say we’re young and we don’t know
We won’t find out untiiiiiil we grow
Well I don’t know if all that’s true
‘Cause you got me, and baby I got you

I don't remember which was Sonny and which was Cher

Babe
<Oboe punh-punh>
I got you babe
<Oboe punh-punh>

Mom’s popping up and down with her vocal oboe beats, and Elia is laughing but trying to stay on point, and I just couldn’t remember if I was supposed to put the completed cards at the end of the stack, or was there a discard pile somewhere? I couldn’t let go of any card for too long because the large stack was awkward and weighty and what if the cards fell? And while I thought Mom and El knew the words, we were all tipsy and celebratory and at a wedding in a dark reception room with approximately 8 zillion eyes upon us expecting something, and who knows what that could do to memory.

Not everyone knew the back story, and part of me wondered what they thought of these Louisiana women, two singing and one sitting as gracefully as she could in her silk shantung strapless dress in a chair with giant cards unsure what to do with the spent ones.

They say our love won’t pay the rent
Before it’s earned, our money’s all been spent.
I guess that’s so, we don’t have a plot
But at least I’m sure of all the things we got…

Mom and the oboe bit…

So I just started dropping the cards alongside my chair, and each catches a bit of air, you know? And they’re slip-sliding all about, Mom’s oboeing up and down, Elia is a professional actress so she’s trying to keep everything together but is laughing too, the insiders are cracking up, the ones not in the know have rather blank but sweetly bemused stares (most of them), and I just could not keep up with the cards.

“Why are there so few words on each damn card?” I think, nearly doubled over in hysterics about both the pressure I felt under and also how hilarious this all was.

Meanwhile, Sonny and Cher got flowers in the spring, he got her to wear his ring, she says his hair is NOT too long, and they, hand in hand, know they can scale any peak.

Oboes, cards, punh-punh, thirty years. It was great. And to this day, every time that song plays anywhere, I can't stop myself from air-playing that background beat.

The Hair

May has gotten to be such an absurdly busy month. Having learned of its lunacy over the past few years, I last month, in a moment of wisdom, signed myself up for a marvelous, two-week writing class that began yesterday.

Co-hosted by the ever-inspiring and talented Jena Schwartz and her terrific partner in crime, Cigdem Kobu, it's called Mother, May I? and includes ten daily prompts and writings plus an incredibly active, engaged private Facebook group in which writers can share their prompt responses if they'd like.

With each writing and the time I spend posting my piece and responding to others' incredible works, I am reminded of the power, healing and inspiring, of the craft. I am reminded of why I return to the page even if no one reads my words, even if they move and affect no one but me. 

Yesterday's piece was wrenching and hard. Today's was light and fun, a trip down memory lane via hair. My hair. Enjoy. 
~~~

Perhaps more than anything –even more than the earrings that matched the bow, belt and socks; even more than monogrammed backpacks- our hair was the way I and the girls I grew up with personalized ourselves. As if we were matching canvasses but for our hair: manes short and long, thick and thin; grand waves and peaks and gusts of moldable yarn and silk that we shaped into Emily, Janie, Callie and Katy.

My hair was particularly important to me because it didn’t have anything to do with all that grew below it. I felt pudgy instead of thin, was pale instead of tan. My stomach pooched out more than my flat chest ever did or would. It took years for me to feel right in my own skin, but I always loved and could style my hair.

Side-ponytails, high ponys, low ones too. Straight, braided, ironed, crimped. I made a huge mistake in third grade by insisting on cutting my long locks into the Mary Lou, the short, perfectly pert and practical do worn by Olympic gymnast and my then-heroine, Mary Lou Retton. I had the stars and stripes leotard, I was a member of Mary Lou’s fan club, my parents took me to see her perform under endless fluorescents in Houston. I did everything to be that megawatt-smile powerhouse, but her haircut did not work on me: it simply highlighted my round cheeks and buck teeth and the unflattering, maroon-plaid school uniform I wore.

And boy did it take a long while to grow out. All the while I watched my friends' long hair bounce and shine, I envied their sleek ponytails and glossy braids. And I waited, still turning cartwheels during recess and trying to feel like Mary Lou.

A year or two after my hair had grown out again, I permed it. What another wretched idea. The man who did it burned the hairline along my forehead and my bangs fell out. We later found out that he was a druggie who ran a thriving business from the closet where he kept his hair chemicals.

Fortunately, the perm grew out and my bangs grew back in.

Good thing because come middle school, it was all about the bangs. Specifically, the three-layer, individually curling-ironed rolls that we then teased together into a rounded, three-dimensional triangle and sprayed with AquaNet within an inch of life. Imagine trying to keep that situation looking good in south Louisiana heat and humidity on any day but especially those during which we also had to dress out for PE (maroon poly-blend, elastic-waist shorts and maroon tees), play dodgeball in a steamy gym and then redress, sans shower, in time to get to math class.

I’d slimmed out by this point but was still woefully flat-chested (and doing “I must, I must, I must increase my bust” a la Judy Blume at every private opportunity) and the challenge issued by my bangs was a mighty one. Fortunately, Laurie discovered the portable, butane-powered curling iron, and we all shared it hurriedly and hungrily after PE.

In New York, I became a regular at the Vidal Sassoon salon, and worked with April, a sassy woman with a way with scissors. My hair got shorter and sleeker and my bangs went the way of perms and Mary Lous. It also got blonder and blonder, and at one point, a flaming stylist convinced me to go "slightly red."

Friends, I looked like a feral cat.

During each of my pregnancies, the back (but not the front) of my hair grew curlier. And not in a good way: it looks rather like a failed perm slept on when wet. It’s a mess.

But I now have a mostly fool-proof system that involves blow-drying my hair in three or four stages (it is exceedingly thick, which I love but which is time-consuming) with my Super Solano (a fantastic gift from my husband) and then flat-ironing many, tiny sections with my Jose Eber (another superb gift from T).

It’s a ridiculous process, but I relish the days that my hair sweeps and swings long around my shoulders, glossy and healthy (if something can be both healthy and require a two-part intervention and mousse and anti-frizz spray). It makes me feel put together, and not in a superficial way.

I often find that when my insides are roiling -nervous, sad, peevish, whatever- a polished exterior smooths the fizz. I suspect that’s an old coping mechanism, learned and honed and reinforced over the years.

But somedays, only a ponytail will do. And I’m over bangs.

An Earth Day Odyssey of sorts

The nursery opens at 9am. I pull into its lot at 9:01. I tell myself that my sense of urgency is because it's Earth Day, and I want to get going on my celebration of this planet we're lucky to call ours. But honestly, any day I know I'll get a few hours in the garden prompts this same hurried, eager response. 

"Just mulch and topsoil," I swear to myself. "You've damn near kept the nursery in business this past month. Be responsible," the angel on my shoulder says. Or was it the devil?

I don't even get a cart, just a cardboard tray. Just in case. I will myself past the annuals, their colors and whimsy calling to me like sirens. "You are fucking Homer," I whisper to myself. "You do not want to approach the rocky, floral, one-season shores."

But the freshly delivered palates of vegetables in the next tent throw me off; I am not expecting them. I tear off my blindfold and earplugs and jump toward the craggy bank strewn with young tomato plants. I cannot resist their herbal leaves and weeping yellow buds of promise. All I can think about is picking and eating handfuls of Sungolds and Sweet 100s, still warm from the sun, in just a month or two.

Then I see the hot pepper plants. And the Chinese eggplant. Like a thief in a store, I pluck up a few pots and hurry to the registers. "Just these, six bags of shredded hardwood mulch, and two bags of topsoil, please." 

I am kind-of Homer. I head home.

Garden gloves on, a bright sun warming my back, I dig and weed, fill in and transplant, mulch and water. A woodpecker taps assertively in a nearby tree. A happy melange of birds sing songs so cheery that they nearly circle back to irritating. But not quite. I consider that mulch is like nature's make-up; it makes everything look so polished.

"Oh, you are such a good worm. Look at you, Mr. Worm, doing such a fine job. Thank you." Any passerby might wonder about me, but actually, in our lovely new neighborhood, they might not. There are many avid gardeners in our midst. We feel an instant kinship. No one cares about my dirty hands or sweaty hair.

Tom arrives home early. I've hardly seen him since my birthday, and his being home when it's still light out is a nice treat. I seat the kids at the patio table with huge bowls of fresh, steaming spaghetti and meatballs, pour a glass of wine, and, as T gets a beer, ask if he will indulge me by taking a spin in the yard.

"Sure, honey. Where are my shoes?"

Arm in arm, we loop from the front door, around and back. "Look, hon, I divided and transplanted the heuchera! They're a native plant so especially well-suited to this region and also fairly hardy. The Cotton Easter is out of control, but I'll deal with it tomorrow. The azaleas and sedum look great."

"You've worked hard, Em. I like getting our yard in order."

"Me too, sweetie."

I think of how nice a hot bath will soon feel. How the soles of my feet are probably going to stay dirt-brown until September. How I don't care at all because their colored hue symbolizes hard work, investment, deep pleasure and our home.

I think of how I used to smirk at my parents as they made similar treks around our yard. How Mom always saw the big picture and Dad liked to assume tripod position -legs spread wide, one arm planting his torso, the other ready to pick any philandering weeds- to deal with two square inches of grass.

I am a perfect blend of them; eager to conquer and beautify the whole but deeply interested in hand-culling every single unwelcome guest from my plot. I am aware of what I look like in tripod position. I think of myself as Ouiser Boudreaux from Steel Magnolias, with a healthy dose of Imelda Marcos and Nigella Lawson thrown into the mix.

I think about how happy I am to be all of these things: dirty, sweaty, humble, fancy. How I used to hate grass and bugs and sweat and dirty fingernails, about those immature pubescent smirks as my parents spent time together after a long day, about what they showed me about a loving couple spending time together.

How I now talk to worms and don't shoo away bees and appreciate dirt and take my own husband for a garden walk before the sun sets. How I use birthday gift certificates on tomato plants and nitrile gloves. 

I think that really, every day is Earth Day, or should be. And I am thankful.

One bunny hops across the road while another scampers through a neighbor's yard. I know they terrorize gardens, but they are so freaking cute. I wave like a mad-woman at a fat squirrel in my bird-feeder. "Get away, you pilfering beast," I call out, even though he's awfully cute. I go in, he returns, I shoo him away once more, a cardinal moves in. I was rooting for the sparrow but he was too meek, so the cardinal won first dibs on all that the squirrel had unwillingly left behind.

I clean the boys' dishes, spoon them ice cream, pour some more wine and listen as my oldest FaceTimes with his poetry partner. It is the most sincere, darling flirting happening amidst the equally sincere homework assignment. 

"Mom, can K come for dinner one night?" 

"Of course, sweetie. I would love that! She is a wonderful girl." 

It's amazing how time passes and things change. A garden grows, bulbs self-cultivate, children mature, technology enables early attraction in a way I never knew. 

"Mom, can I tell you about our texting? It was so silly!" my oldest calls. And I go to him, even though it's late, even though I'm tired, because he wants to tell me everything they exchanged, which poem is his favorite, which emojis she used.

I wouldn't trade all of this for anything.