A Mother’s Patience

In the last week I’ve read a memoir by an author whose mother physically abused him during his childhood. I watched a documentary about a television titan whose mother abused him verbally and emotionally throughout his life. You can imagine my relief to see this model of motherhood:

To view the bold colt a little later in life, please visit Mustang Saga to see the companion photo.

I guess some things in life don’t change.

Finally, A Little Good News

In the last couple of months, my reading has randomly uncovered one sad story after another, many of them about losing the one creature the writer (or one of the writer’s remaining animals) had the strongest bond with. Needless to say, I’ve been a little weepy.

I don’t seek this kind of darkness. It somehow finds me and peels away whatever gossamer layer was beginning to encase my own rawness.

But today I stumbled upon a 2008 blog post from Mugwump Chronicles that warmed my heart. I bet it will do the same for you. (Just click through the link.)

[Pic from DesktopNexus.]

Sight-Seeing in the Bluegrass: Part 3

The last you’ll (probably) hear about my week with The Visitor…

On a crisp and sunny Friday, we rode a lift up to the panoramic views of the Natural Bridge on the edge of Eastern Kentucky. Our aim was twofold: to show our Visitor some different terrain during her stay, and to spread some of my father’s ashes there as he’d requested.

There are laws prohibiting what my husband and I planned to do, plus it was gusty atop the rock. So we had to choose a sequestered spot where no one would see us or be disturbed by us (i.e., get “sprayed” by bits o’ Dad). Our Visitor, long divorced from my father, chose to wait for us in a clump of trees where she felt protected from the wind.

When we finished our mission, we rejoined our Visitor, who told us lots of folks kept trying to get her to sit in a nearby shelter where she’d be warmer. Worried what people would think of her standing in one place for so long, The Visitor finally spilled the beans to the next person who approached her: The Park Ranger.

Yes, The Visitor chose to expose our illegal activity to the one person with the authority to punish us. Yes, unbelievably, my own mother gave us up.

“I told him exactly what you were doing and he thought it was a beautiful idea!”

“Mother! It was illegal. We didn’t want anyone to know!”

“I know,” said The Visitor. “That’s why you have to be careful who you tell.”

“Exactly.” WTF? “He’s probably waiting for us at the end of the trail.”

“No, no, no. He thought it was beautiful,” The Visitor reassured us.

“Right. And now he can hardly wait to arrest us—at the end of the trail.”

My husband chimed in at this point, warning The Visitor, “Don’t be surprised if we pretend not to know you.”

We followed the trail to another scenic view, offering small talk to passing hikers along the way but not mentioning “the incident” again. As the trail opened onto another massive rock and aerial view of mountains and valleys, there before us were not one, but TWO PARK RANGERS.

There was no escape. I had no choice.

“We don’t know you,” I whispered to The Visitor.

Paying Tribute to Mothers

Our mothers shape us. Whether through kindness, control, neglect, or guidance, their influence on the adults we become stretches far beyond the genetics we share with them.

The mother of bioacoustic scientist Katy Payne stoked her curiosity and imagination. In Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants, Payne writes of one childhood incident that would have had very different consequences had her mother been cut from the same cloth as, say, Mary Karr’s mom or my father-in-law’s Tiger Mom.

School officials informed her mother that Katy had been getting to school increasingly late. In fact, on that particular day, she had arrived two hours after the other children.

Without reprimand, her mother coaxed from her the reason for the tardiness: Katy had devised an experiment to see if she could differentiate by taste the maple trees she passed on the way to grade school. Her mother’s solution was to wake and dress Katy before sunrise the next day so she had plenty of time to sample the sap of each tree and still get to school on time.

It’s stories like this that make us happy to honor our mothers today, or honor the women who acted as mothers to us. These are the memories worth sharing and savoring with others—especially with the very individual who shaped who we’ve become.

A Mother’s Decision Becomes A Fond Memory

Mother’s Day is upon us—an occasion that may have you thinking about candy, cards, brunch, and flowers. I, on the other hand, have been reminiscing about a car ride…

To get to my grandmother’s house from my childhood home was easy, and I knew every inch of the route:

Up Jackson Street and right on Winter Avenue, which you followed until you met the fork in the road. Veer left and the road wended past fairytale houses—one with a tennis court, one where I would later take horseback-riding lessons on a roan named Cokie (so called because his favorite treat was Coca-Cola)—and at the corner of the landmark pink house, turn right. Follow this road around the swamp and at the first eastside driveway past the ancient tree growing in the middle of the road, turn right. That was Grandma’s. It hardly took 10 minutes to get there and we went there often.

Late one afternoon, we were headed for Grandma’s, but my mother took a different route. No pretty houses, no curving road; all right angles through foreign neighborhoods. I’m sure I asked her why, and probably more than once, but I can no longer remember the story she concocted.

On our way home late that night, Mother drove the regular route. And halfway in, our car lights illuminated what she hadn’t wanted me to see: a dead dog.

Mother muttered something like, “I thought they’d have picked that up by now.” I started crying.

Mother said she was sorry I had to see the dachshund like that. She’d noticed it earlier in the day, hence had taken the long route to Grandma’s with me. I was inconsolable.

Author Susan Chernak McElroy understands. Her mother had told her early on that she’d outgrow her “craziness” over animals. But years passed, and when McElroy tried to write a tribute about her dog—crying all the while—she was ashamed by how strongly she related to her pet. She had come to believe it was, in her words, “a profound indicator of my lack of maturity.”

The truth is that we don’t outgrow the bond. We either deepen it by acting on it—McElroy writes books about it now, some people go into animal care or conservation. Or we hide it—“in-growing” it, as it were. But the bond remains a defining element of our identity and character.

Decades have passed since the dead dog incident of my early childhood. I can still see that dachshund lying on the pavement. And I still marvel at the effort my mother took to spare me the experience (and, no doubt, to spare herself the aggravation of a sobbing child).

Though my mother did not share the deep bond I had with animals, she acknowledged it and accepted it. For this, I’m grateful.

I’m sure my mother sacrificed much for me in my lifetime and went the extra mile for me in all sorts of ways. But the day that she drove the literal extra mile is what I’ll always treasure as one of her greatest gifts to me.

[Pics are types of critters (besides the typical birds, cats, dogs, and horses) I’ve had relationships with, though not the specific ones I knew. Photo credits: box turtle from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; bunny by susang2; piglet from New Dawn Farm Sanctuary; octopus by Dave King.]

Lull Logs 100!

t's official: Today marks a small milestone on Lull. This is the 101st post.

True, I've not posted every single day; yet some days I've provided multiple articles and tidbits.

If you're new to Lull, you may be interested in:

Why I started this blog

The reason I don't post every day

Why I use a pseudonym

You also should be informed of the topics you'll probably never find on Lull. Here are 5:

1. Scrapbooking & Stamping

While I admire the creative outlet and output of these (mostly) women, it's not something you'll ever find me doing. Truth be told, I can't cut straight. Not even using a straightedge. (You can ask the graphic designers I once tried to help during a particularly hellish period of production in the marketing firm that employed us. My inability stunned them. They could not reconcile this newly discovered side of me with the gifted and anal side that kerned 6 point type, found mathematical mistakes in annual reports, and maintained language continuity throughout each marketing campaign. I can't explain it. I've just learned to accept it.)

2. Motherhood

I don't have any kids now. I most likely won't have any in the future. I may mention kids or mothers at some point, but they're not the focus of Lull or me.

3. Jesus, The Bible, & Home-schooling

Somehow these three topics are often intertwined. I've already written about Jesus once; I may do so again. And I'll post quotes, but they probably won't be taken from a holy book. When I was a nanny, the couple who employed me considered having me home-school their children. After all, I was certified to teach. Horror of horrors! I had been trained to teach high-schoolers, not small children (and SIX of them, no less). I felt hugely unqualified to take the job, though I'm sure I could have muddled through. But many of the home-schoolers who blog about it could/SHOULD scare the wits out of people who care about language. These makeshift educators don't spell or write well or indicate any kind of expertise in academic subjects. Which is not to say that they won't be able to instruct their children, but they're coming out of the gate with a handicap.

4. Sports

Don't watch. Don't play. Not interested. Nuff said.

5. Recipes

I don't cook. Not anymore. And I'm not a foodie, nor do I need to eat fabulous food. However, I like to smell it, see it, read about it, think about it, talk about it. But I don't often indulge.

All of these topics are extensively covered on many fabulous blogs and on many lame blogs, some with hundreds of Followers. And if my only aim was to get more Followers (even angry adversaries), I might take on such topics.

Instead, here are some topics you'll certainly come across on Lull:

1. Job-Hunting, Loss, Motivation

2. Books, Libraries, Reading

3. Editing, Language, Writing

4. Animals, Conservation, Plants

5. Workplace Culture, Leadership

New or not, I hope you stick with Lull. I'd like to think that I'm not alone in this passage of life, and that soon, all of our fortunes will change for the better.