Mother's Day

Augusta, Georgia. 1983.

“Blue,” I say.

Mom smiles and nods. The index card is colored with blue crayon on one side. She turns the card over and shows me the word “blue,” written in ink in all lower case letters. Then she sets the card down in a stack and picks up another card.

“Green,” I say…

In the nursery of the church where Dad is a preacher, we continue this exercise of learning colors. It is at this time that blue becomes my favorite color.

***

Wake Forest, North Carolina. 1983.

At Grandma Carter’s house, the exercises have become more complicated. Rather than going to kindergarten, Mom is teaching me to read at home. I will begin school in first grade in the coming months.

She holds up a large card with a series of words that form a sentence. Each word is marked with pronunciation indications for me.

“No, it is the a sound,” Mom says. “Short a, not long a. A. Say that.”

My TV time is limited while I work with Mom during the day on these sorts of activities. I can only watch for an hour.

After we finish the day’s schooling, my brother wants to use his allotment of TV time to watch a re-run broadcast of BJ and the Bear.

I lay down on the floor, with one of the green pillows from the couch over my face while he sits in front of the television.
I peek out from underneath the pillow and also watch the show. I think that Mom does not notice this.

When the show finishes, my brother obediently turns off the television, but I protest that it is my turn for an hour.

“No,” mom says. “You weren’t fooling me with the pillow. That counts as your time.”

“But I couldn’t see anything,” I argue.

It does no good.

After I become an adult, Mom tells me that during the time when she taught me at home, she would often get frustrated with herself and worry that she was not doing a good job with me.

But the memories that I have of her and that part of my life are much more pleasant than my memories of when I began first grade at Millbrook K-12 school. I would have preferred to stay at home with her to continue my education.

***

Lumberton, North Carolina. Mid 1980s.

Many evenings after mom has spent a day teaching school and then come home, cooked and served supper, she stands at the sink washing dishes. The sink has a window to the yard and fields outside, and Mom is content with that.

We do not have a dishwasher in the house out in the country where we live at Route 7, Box 568B.

I watch her sometimes, looking at the back of her head as she gazes out the window and scrubs dishes without looking down at them.

“As long as I have a window, that is enough. I don’t need a dishwasher or want one.”

In addition to her regular State job of teaching children with mental handicaps, she is now also going to teach blind children with mental handicaps. She spends many days over the summer in between school sessions teaching herself Braille.

I listen to the sound of the heavy metal Braille typing machine. Mom has to mash down the keys very hard to create the raised dots on the special paper. It is a loud machine, and she has to lug it around wherever she goes.

***

Lumberton, North Carolina. 1990s. Saturdays.

We live in town, now, in a middleclass community called Lakewood Estates.

After cooking us a breakfast of scrambled eggs, grits, bacon, and biscuit toast with butter and jelly, Mom sets about the task of cleaning the house.

The chemicals that Mom is using in the bathrooms are too strong for me. I step outside onto the front porch and get some air.

After Mom finishes making the showers and sinks and toilets spotless, she starts on cleaning the hardwood floors. She goes over the whole house with a broom, and then a mop sprayed with another cleaning chemical of some sort.

When that task is finished, she does everyone’s laundry. Dad, hers, my brother’s and mine.

In between these activities, she stops to make us sandwiches for lunch. Then in the early afternoon, she cooks dinner for us. After dinner, she cleans up the kitchen and washes the dishes.

We now have a dishwasher, thank goodness, but Mom spends about as much time pre-washing the dishes, pots and pans before putting them in the machine as she did before when she stood looking out the window over the sink at the old country house.

Sundays.

While I am still sleeping, Mom gets up at 5am to study her Sunday school lesson and work on the lunchtime meal.

After church, the family sits down to a feast of barbecued chicken, or fried chicken, or roast beef, or ham, or sometimes all of this. There are green beans, mashed potatoes or white rice with gravy, corn, sweet potatoes, black eyed peas, green peas, and biscuits.

When we have finished stuffing ourselves on the tremendous food with a certain taste that only my Mom knows how to make, I go to the living room with Dad and my brother, and we turn on the television to watch the NFL games or baseball games or college basketball games.

Mom continues to work in the kitchen, cleaning up everything and packaging the leftovers that will be dinner tonight.

Monday morning, it will up again early for her to deal with the kids at school, followed by cooking dinner and cleaning the dishes afterward in the evening.

Dad, my brother and I dominate the television set, watching whatever we want- usually sports if it is on.

Mom does not like watching television. When Mom has finished the dishes, she goes back to the bedroom and reads a novel until she falls asleep on top of the covers of the bed. Many times I walk to the back bedroom and see that she is asleep with an open book on her lap, across her stomach or even across her face. It is not even nine o’clock yet.

***

Present Day.

Mom has Parkinson’s disease, now. It is slowly increasing on her left side. Unless she concentrates on it, her left hand trembles. She notices other people noticing this, though of course it is not something she chooses to dwell on.

“I do the best I can with it, each day,” she says.

Mom has not had a sense of smell for years, and I have all ideas that it was destroyed from all those chemicals she used time after time in cleaning the bathrooms for our family.

I wonder as well if the Parkinson’s disease could come from that. No one knows what causes Parkinson’s, but all those years of working with difficult children in the State school system, all those years of also making meals for us, constantly cleaning the house and our clothes and the dishes, a never ending cycle of exhaustion- that did nothing to help her body and immune system fight off the beginnings of the disease.

“A man works from sun to sun, while a woman’s work is never done,” I have heard my Dad say often.

Mom deserves so much more credit than that- a pithy rhyming expression or a blog entry.

I will never be able to repay all that she has done for Dad, my brother and me, and the love that she has given us.

Jumping a River, Sliding on Records, and an Evening Nap

Wilmington, North Carolina. Approximately 1981-1983.

In Sunday school class, Mom and the other teacher lay out a light blue blanket on the floor. It represents a river, from some story in the Bible where the people of Israel or something had to cross.



All of us children in the class line up to take turns jumping over it. Some of us make it, some of us do not and land in the “water.”

I am one of the ones that cannot quite jump over the entire “river,” try as I might. Making it over the water is a very real thing in my head. Failure is scary and disappointing.

This game is so popular that the kids want to keep doing it the following Sunday as well. In the week in between, Mom has the blanket at home. I practice in the living room, doing my best to clear it.

“Your heels still land in the water,” Mom tells me.

Some of the older and larger kids in the class can jump over the blanket pretty easily. The next Sunday, Mom and the other teacher take children’s books and line the edge of the blanket, pretending this is also water to make the river wider and more challenging for these kids.

But when it is my turn again, there is only the light blue blanket.

I line up against the wall, giving myself as much room to run as possible. Staring at a spot beyond the far edge of the water, concentrating on it as the place I need to reach, I sprint as hard as I can and then leap…

“Did I make it?” I ask mom.

“You made it,” she says. “Your feet completely cleared the water.”

I pump my fist in the air.

The other Sunday school teacher, an overweight, elderly woman, immediately bends over and begins slapping down a line of books against the blanket for my next try.

Mom must see the disheartened look on my face at this. She tells the woman, “No. He’s done well enough.”

The lady gives Mom a bit of a surprised look, but then picks up the books.

So I jumped over the sky blue river. Victory.

***

Wake Forest, North Carolina. 1983.

We are living with Grandma Carter while Dad searches for a job. Mom is working as a substitute teacher at Millbrook K-12 school.
Of course, at my young age I do not comprehend the stress and strain that is on my family right now.

One day, I am listening to children’s stories and songs on the record player in Grandma’s living room with my younger brother.



I stand on the couch, and the records are laid out on the floor. I do not like sitting or standing in place for very long while I listen, so I take a running jump off the couch and accidentally land on one of the glossy cardboard record sleeves.

To my surprise and delight, I go sliding across the floor standing on the sleeve.

“Wow! Adam, did you see that?”

I quickly line up the sleeve to the spot where I landed and hop back on the couch.

Adam watches carefully as I do another running leap off the couch and again slide some distance.

Soon, he and I are both doing this, and we also quickly learn that we do not need to jump off the couch. Getting a running start on the floor is even better. We scoot across the carpet, riding the record sleeves like surf boards.

The ones that have the record still in them slide much better than the empty sleeves.

Neither my brother nor I are big enough to reach the record player and change it when one ends. Mom comes into the room.

“Hey Mom, watch what we can do!”

Adam and I both give her a demonstration.

“Stop that!” Mom instructs us. “You’ll tear up the records.”

Sure enough, we have put some significant creases in the cardboard and stomped on some of the faces pictured on them.
Fortunately, Adam and I are both light enough that we did not actually break any of the records. Maybe the sleeves are pretty strong.

Later, I ask mom for an old record sleeve that I could use just for sliding. She begrudgingly gives me an empty one. Perhaps I wear it out, or perhaps it definitely needs the record inside it to work, but I never get the one she gave me to slide very well.

***

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

This afternoon I went for a six mile run. It was my third six mile run in less than a week. I am trying to get in shape to keep up with some friends from law school who enjoy doing races in Tallahassee. 18+ miles is more than I have run in one week since I was on the high school cross country team in 1994 and 1995. I can do these six mile runs on flat ground in Live Oak in comfortably less than an hour, but I need to be able to do it over hills in Tallahassee in about 45 minutes if I am to keep sight of my friends in a race. That is a tall order, and I am already starting to notice little tweaks, aches and pains.

But I am motivated. These are people I would like to be around, that it would be healthy for me to be around. So I hope it works out, that they enjoy my company and want me to keep coming back for these runs.

The uptick in the distance I run causes carry-over fatigue when I get home from work. A couple of days this week, I collapsed in my recliner after walking in from the job and went to sleep almost immediately.

If a baseball game is on television, I will set that to a low volume and then drift off to sleep. If there is no baseball game on, then I play a movie.

One of my favorite movies to go to sleep to is Blade Runner. I saw it for the first time in college, and did not think much of the film then. As I have gotten older, though, I have come to enjoy the world it creates. Two of the scenes in the movie are among my all-time favorites. And though it is uneven in parts, particularly with Harrison Ford’s narration, overall it is one of the best science fiction movies ever made, a terrific futuristic film noir.



I had a vivid dream during my evening nap this week, while Blade Runner was quietly playing.

I dreamed that I was back in law school, that I was a permanent student, having seen many three year cycles come and go. I am no longer young, but actually 37 years old. I sit alone at a table at a Student Bar Association event. It is at a nightclub of some sort. The law school students are all crowded around the bar, ordering drinks with their backs to me, except for the newly elected SBA president, who stands in profile at the end of the bar.

I watch him and marvel at how young and full of life everyone is. Then there is a pain in my chest, and I have the distinct feeling that I am about to die.

The thought that goes through my mind, that I know will be my last thought, is that I did my best to enjoy this. I did my best to enjoy being young. A stern religious upbringing , severe acne well into my 20s, and what was referred to as “autistic tendencies” were obstacles that impeded me, especially with girls, but I did the best I could once I understood myself better.

There is no feeling or fear that I am about to be judged by someone or something on the good and the bad things that I have done or on the beliefs I hold. There is only my hope that I did the best I could to appreciate the life that was given to me.

I know that I cannot rewind time, that I cannot be young again. I am not a part of this group who stands around the bar. I say out loud, “I did the best I could with the circumstances as I understood them.” But no one is paying attention.

Then there is a feeling of reluctant acceptance that my time is over. A pop in my chest. I exhale and die.

I literally die in my dream…

And then I wake up from my nap. The pain in my chest is very real, and I struggle to sit up straight in my recliner and shake the cobwebs from my head.

Over the past few weeks and months, I have had the uneasy feeling that I am going to die very soon. Of course, I hope it is all just nonsense and that many years remain to me. I am guessing that the feeling partly comes because I have settled happily into Live Oak and this job. Never in my adult life have I stayed in one place or kept the same job for very long.

I have been in Live Oak less than a year as well, but this feels like a place where I could live and a job that I could do for the rest of my life if I am lucky. It feels like a sort of last stop. I think perhaps my body and brain do not know how to react to that. And I probably never will trust this to last long, based on my other experiences.

Anyway, one of my all-time favorite scenes from any movie was coming up in Blade Runner when I awoke…

Roy, a type of superhuman clone gone rogue, has arrived at the last minutes of his pre-programmed four year life span. He has developed his own emotions and questions about the meaning of it all. Roy decides to spare the life of Deckard, the man trying to terminate him for the danger he presents to humans, and these are Roy's last words:

Roy: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.

On the written page, it does not seem so powerful. Performed by Rutger Hauer, though, in a setting from Ridley Scott, it takes on potency. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_saUN4j7Gw

Perhaps in the future, I should just try to sleep without a movie playing in the background.

The Irrelevance of iPhone Shell Shock

Millbrook K-12 School, Raleigh, North Carolina. 1983.

It is my group's turn to do exercises. Today, these exercises will be on the new computers. It hurt my feelings a bit when, a few weeks ago, the teacher did not assign me to the first group, supposedly the smartest students in my first grade class. I have been placed in the group of second smartest students. She did not tell us how she was classifying the groups, of course, but I know. The first group is ahead of mine on the number of exercises completed. My group is ahead of all the others.

I sit down in front of one of the computers, looking at the big blue screen while the other students in my group take their places as well. It is the first time that I have ever seen a computer in person or touched a keyboard. The teacher's aide, a lady with dark red hair and thick glasses, sets up the program for me. It is a series of spelling exercises.

A cartoon, computer graphic image of a bare, pink skinned foot appears. Five dotted lines are below the picture- the spaces to type in letters- and an automated voice says, "Ankle. Spell ankle."

I type in the letters slowly in the five blank spaces, searching for them on the keyboard. A...N...K...L..E. Then I press the "enter" key.

"That is incorrect," the voice says. "Spell ankle."

Confused, I type in the word again. a...n...k...l...e.

"That is incorrect. Spell ankle."

A...n...k...l...e.

"That is incorrect. Spell ankle."

Maybe the computer is wrong, I think. So I try an incorrect spelling.

a...n...k...e...l.

"That is incorrect. Spell ankle."

I raise my hand in frustration.

The teacher's aide comes over, a small and sour frown on her face. I do not think she likes me that much, as I do not like school. It was much better when Mom taught me at home. I did not have to go to kindergarten because she taught me at home, and this is my first year of being in a classroom and being around other students.

"I am trying to spell ankle, but it keeps telling me that I am wrong," I say to her.

"Well, type it in again," she says.

She watches as I press the keys a...n...k...l...e. Then I press enter.

"That is incorrect. Spell ankle."

I look up at the teacher's aide. Now she looks confused, and I feel vindicated.

She leans over and tries to type the word in herself.

"That is incorrect. Spell ankle."

"Go have a seat back at your desk, " she says. "I'll see if I can fix this."

I walk across the classroom back to my desk, and watch as she tries to get past the "ankle" screen to no avail. She calls over the regular teacher, Mrs. Hawkins, and the two of them try to figure out what is going on. Meanwhile, the students on the other computers type away, and I get an anxious feeling that I am being left behind.

The teacher's aide ends up turning off the computer, and I do not get to do any exercises that day...

Thus begins my rocky relationship with technology and computers.



***

Present day.

One of the reliefs of my new job in Live Oak is that I do not have an iPhone.

I work hard here, putting in much more than 40 hours per week. A difference between being a government lawyer and a lawyer at a private firm, though, is that when I leave the government office, the work stays there. My mind is free to think about other things if I choose. That is rarely the case in private practice, where you always have to be ready to take a phone call and make money for the firm.

Last year, I held a job in sales. As part of our company issued gear, I was given an iPad and an iPhone. I used the iPad for one day, but decided that it was not as user-friendly as my lap top computer. I put it back in its box and never turned it on again.

The iPhone was necessary, though, given the nature of the job. Answering emails quickly was vital, and I answered more than I care to count on the iPhone, punching away at the small screen with my thumbs.

Emails came in at all hours of the day and night- from my boss, from students (customers). The pinging sound that the iPhone made when a new email came in slowly but surely began to grind on my nerves. Each time I heard that sound, it was like being hit with anxiety pellets.

In my job here in Live Oak, there is a prosecutor and some members of the court who have their iPhones set with that same sound when they receive an email. I hear their phones go off when I am sitting in their offices or perhaps the hearing room. Each time I hear it, I get a slight nauseating feeling.

World War I veterans would laugh at me for using the term "shell shock" in the title of this blog entry.

Computers have made my life better in many ways. I like the internet, Facebook, and Youtube. Writing this blog would obviously be impossible without computers.

But there are many things about computers and smartphones that make me feel stress and unhappiness, too. I do not like text messaging, tweets, iPads and iPhones.

What I have discovered though, is that no one cares what I do not like about computers and smart phones. I feel like I am the only person on the planet who prefers to stare out a window as opposed to messing with an app on an iPhone. If I do not participate in the newest wave of technology, then I run the risk of quickly becoming irrelevant in my job and even in social circles.

So far, anyway, this job is very satisfying in that I still get to work with printed books and printed files. I hand write my notes on a legal pad. Westlaw and the internet provide important research functions, but I am lucky in that the vast majority of my time consists of face to face contact with people, working with paper and pen, and working within my own creativity with the facts of the case in front of a judge or jury.

It is a refuge from the pellets of anxiety being lobbed at me, a foxhole to protect against the strange and unpleasant electronic sounds of an incoming shell...I mean incoming email.