Close the door
Change the channel
Give me something I can handle
A good lover or some one who’s nice to me
Take my money
wreck my Sundays
Love me till your next somebody
Oh but promise me that when it’s time to leave
Don’t forget me
(Maggie Rogers- George has seen a look alike with a country accent at Sugar’s restaurant by Chattanooga.)
I heard this first in BeBe’s car. She played it special for Mim and I as she was trying to ration out the songs released ahead of Maggie Rogers new album to be released in a couple of month. She didn’t want to overplay her favorites and then be lost without Maggie music until the album was birthed entirely.
I immediately had a warm heart hearing what BeBe loves. How lucky to be let into her heart’s particulars. Music feeds us and she gave me a bite of her favorite. To get that glimpse warms me, lights me, feeds me. BeBe keeps her cards close to her chest. A glimmer. A morsel ends up being huge to me. Reminds me of my mom’s smiles. Some of my friends growing up were scared of my mom- which in a way is ridiculous because she would never hurt a flea. But she didn’t gush. Didn’t gossip with my teenage friends or wear their clothes. She was the mom and to me that is a humongous good example. Be the consistent reliable mom. Children and adults knowing what they can expect from a person is beautiful and instills trust which is hard to come by. My mom’s smiles and laughter were special. She has lightened up some as she has aged. But when I was growing up, her smile meant more, because it wasn’t constant. Red lipstick. Tiny overlap of the front teeth. A gold necklace sparkle. My mom is number 4 of the family of 6 she grew up in. BeBe is number 3 in our family of 6. My mom and BeBe are backbones. They would never let anybody fall or crumble. They are strong enough to carry great loads. It doesn’t mean they should have to but they are capable. And I hope I lighten their load and not add my burdens, but I honestly do both.
I listened to Maggie’s new song many times on my last road rip to my mom’s. Mum took care of Mim while I had work and Mim had some free days off school. While at Mum’s, I was fighting paralyzation. It is one of my coping methods. I smile faintly and stare into the distance too much. I am lost in thought and warding off anxiety. Wrapped in a blanket of what ifs and worry and how to proceed. I have loved my new job at a public school for three to five year olds. The school is focused on inclusion. I am a self contained special education teacher in a n inclusion school. That means I teach children who are said to require a small number of children in their class- which means 14 instead of 18. It means that I teach children with more severe disabilities. The children in my class are non speaking. Well they are labeled that way. Some speak a lot but it isn’t in a traditional or easily understandable way. I have thirteen children in my class- all autistic. One is additionally blind. One is additionally deaf. Two have genetic syndromes. None of that really matters. They are thirteen different little people who I love. And it is a full, overwhelming, filling till overflowed job. And the word love comes to heart and mind a lot between 8 and 2:30. In a school for inclusion, we are the not included. We are the excluded.
Three incidents in the school year, have occurred that made me wonder what evil planet I was on. The incidents had at the core a disrespect for humanity. The thunder roared and wrecked with an earth shattering loud shock to the whole house and it rained cats and dogs in my world. A storm cloud followed me to my mom’s. I drove and listened to Maggie Rogers.
Maggie’s song is Don’t Forget Me. I’m beginning to feel the feelings of aging. Not the physical but the communal or metaphysical. Don’t forget me. I still sweep the debris of my ended marriage to Walt. These crumbs and dust bunnies and glitter that I can’t believe managed to hiding in corners or blows in through the screen door. Never ending reminders. Same conversations. Same arguments swallowed. I’m a grandma. A lucky lucky blessed grandma. A non dating woman of 51. I identify myself as a mother of six, but five are mostly grown. A friend of many married women who have lives with husbands. Husbands who listen to the creeping crazies and negative nancies.
(A picture of my grandson as further proof of my good fortune)
I spend hours a day hiding my feelings or rising above my feelings because the little people I work with and the fifteen year old that I mother do not need my feelings. They require a regulated nurturing human to be their personal regulation system. My body softness, my heart beat, my breath length is a comfort and a cradle for surging brains and active bodies. I am a safety net. I love it. I feel useful. I feel gifted and talented. I understand those that are rarely understood. I see clearly the spirit communicating without ability or intent. I exist in worlds that some avoid. My classroom is named self contained. I am weird and different. It can be a leveled video game inside my head. The level I am stuck in and play by choice and habit and is odd. I am divorced. I am fat and plumpy. I need my paycheck. My kids are growing and moving into the bigger world. I chose this life. I love this life and yet when my job mirrors my lack of fitting in it can be not the best for my mental goodness. I wondered if I needed to run from the storm.
Bad phrases appear in print on the back side of my forehead while my brain reads the typed words. “It is embarrassing to be me.” “I cannot relate to anyone. I might as well hole up here in my room.” “Why do I insist on making my life so hard?” “No wonder I’m alone.” Ticker tape rolling across the inside of my head. Temple to temple. “I’m so weird.”
But George. George lives with me. He is number 4 out of 6. He mentioned recently he may not live with me for much longer. He needs to make future plans. And I understand completely. But for now. Now in this sweet spot. We push Frida off the couch and meet to watch tv. And I think- like Maggie Rogers
Change the channel.
Give me something I can handle.
And he does. My son George meets me where I am. He told me the goal in life is to keep our soul aloft. He usually, is able to accomplish this enlightened feat. I am much more like a frog who sometimes misses the lily pad and falls in the dark dark water.
What a gift he is, to sit there with me. While dishes pile in the sink and laundry whirs in the machine, we ask each other “Did you feed the dogs?” We never have. Either of us. And one of us gets up and does it, so Frida will stop whining. He holds still while I fret. He listens while I babble and cry. And we watch horrible tv because that is all I can handle. He was enjoying reruns of Moonlighting with Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd, but Mim found it too scary. We watch old episodes of WipeOut or the new season of the Bachelor. American Idol, British Baking Show, anything with cake in the title. For us he will watch HGTV again and again, as they put gray fake wood floor and claim it looks fantastic and fresh.
This bonus of divorce has been my relationships with my children. No interference. No intercessor. Just us. I am so lucky to have these people love me. How can I ever say I am lonely when I have a constant companion in Mim and half a dozen hearts in tune with mine. My children are my teachers. My children are my friends. My children are my buffers. You can imagine this the wrong way- focusing on my weirdness- lack of husband or better boundaries. But it doesn’t matter what you think. All I have to ignore is the unwanted thoughts from streaming from temple to temple. I know the goodness and fullness of my weird life. I know the feeling of being truly useful, needed, and appreciated (at least by tiny people). And there is a person in this life who doesn’t forget me and my need for non-provoking television.
(Moonlighting when women wore panty hose.)
Momoirist 