Author: roughwighting

Firm Support

/ roughwighting / 5 Comments

I open my dresser drawer to pull out a bra – my favorite one with the lace and no underwire, just right for a day of writing and relaxation. My hand hovers over the array of other ‘stuff’ in the drawer.

Between the three white bras and one black one, I shuffle through the small bag of potpourri, the sales tags from Nordstrom from three years ago, the tiny antique frame that needs to be mended, as it has for the four years it’s sat in that drawer, and to the right, the pile of greeting cards.

Knowing I shouldn’t, I pull the cards out.  I hesitate, then put them back in their spot. I just do not have time to do this now. I look at the clock – 8:12 – and pull them out again. Okay, just a few.

The first one is a picture of bright yellow California poppies in a field. The last Mother’s day card from my son. I open it up and smile. In his scrunched up, manly handwriting I read, “to an amazing person and an even more amazing mother. May you always know I appreciate everything you have done for me, and I love you very much.” I feel tingly goose bumps roll up my spine. This time he didn’t sign it with his first and last name, as in other years. Looking through my pile, I see his Mother’s day card from two years ago, and another from years before that.

But next I pull out a birthday card from my daughter. Last year? Two years ago? It’s not dated, and I wish I had put a year on it. The cover of the orange, new agey-looking card proclaims, “I know a woman of strength and beauty. I have watched her for years.” Inside, in script is added, “She is my mother. Happy Birthday.” I feel my eyes water (as they do every time I read the card), and then look at the added words, written with orange and blue magic markers. In blue she writes: “Mom, when I saw this card I immediately thought of you, because it says exactly what I think of you. I am blessed to not only know you, but to have you for my mom!”

The words from both my children never fail to touch me deep deep down in my gut, and I allow myself a good cry for three minutes.

I have a pile of at least 20 cards I could go through, from husband, the kids, my mom, friends, that remind me how extremely fortunate I am.

If I’m down and having a particularly tough day, I don’t need to go to the medicine cabinet for a pill, a picker upper. I just go to my bra drawer.

That’s where I always find lots of firm support.

Football and Hits

/ roughwighting / 10 Comments

I’m a middle-aged woman who can’t watch violent movies and who shies away from angry words or, really, any kind of confrontation.

But, I absolutely LOVE football. Go figure!

My love affair began in 1985, living in San Francisco, watching Joe Montana and the 49ers.

Of course, I’d watched football before then – didn’t ‘get’ it. What was the fuss all about?  I dated a quarterback in high school. He was cute, and my popularity increased because I was seen with the BMOC, but the football games were for hot dogs, dancing to the band, and dishing about the cheerleaders, not watching the game.

In college I went out with a guy who tried to inspire passion through round pretzels. No, really. He wanted me to understand the game of football, so he pulled out a bag of those small round pretzels (do they make those kind anymore?) and made the dorm lobby’s glass-topped table a football field.

“Here’s the quarterback,” he’d try. “Now this guy on defense will try and get away from the offensive line..” (the pretzels would be moved in position) “and hit the quarterback so he can’t throw the ball.”

The guy lost me at “hit.” Any game that involved hitting just wasn’t my cup of tea, or in those days, my mug of beer.

But Montana happened, and then Steve Young, and ‘The Catch,’ and 49er fever throughout the Bay Area. I had an ‘aha’ moment, and I began to love football, and its strategy, and understand the necessity of hits.

Segue to this past weekend, with two exciting football playoff games, a New England friend visiting me, a TV in a sun-filled Bay Area condo, and pure silliness.

MA and I began to root for different teams in the beginning of the afternoon, but by the end of the day, I’d pulled her onto my side. We danced with a field goal, pranced with a touchdown, sang bird tunes with a first down, and groaned like sick seals after a sack.

The man of the house, not a football fan like his darling wife (after all, he never had a pretzel lesson, nor did he understand the appeal of the amazing male physiques, ur, athletes) hid in the other room with the newspaper and a good book. But I did see him hide a smile once or twice.

The moral of my post is this: hits can be good, if used properly in Football.

Or Blogs.

Roughwighting has been “hit” over 2,100 times! (That means a reader goes directly into my blog and reads my post. WordPress then documents a “hit.”)

I thank all of you who read my wighting words in my blog and enjoy them, who comment when moved, who are touched in some small way from my shared revelations.

Hit me again.

And Go Patriots!

My grandson and his dad prepare for the Superbowl.

 

 

 

Song of Sorrow

/ roughwighting / 11 Comments

 Early morning walk down the snow-filled street

No cars, no people, nobody but my dog and me

Tiny white flakes fall like dust on our hair

The crunch of my boots follows us into the silence.

Trees stand like white-haired sentries, watching

And then the plaintive song of a lonely bird –

One syllable high, second one low, over and over

Like a call, a question, a cry.

 Its mate is lost, in the snow, in the woods

Gone, as the bird calls and waits, calls and waits

We trudge on, leaving the song of sorrow

Behind us.

Nap Time

/ roughwighting / 9 Comments

Have you noticed how the sleep of babies is so total, so full of abandon? I never tire of watching my grandbabies sleep, although it’s nerve racking.

For instance, near nap time, little year-old Sophie roams the room like a truck driver on 10-cups of coffee, then plops on the floor and exclaims, ‘bitty bah dee duh rre tum tum toe!” She is quite certain that whatever she has said is philosophically salient, and I tend to agree with her.

But when it’s time to put her down for her nap, she fights it like that same truck driver now in his caffeine crash. Sophie is sure that her time would be most well spent continuing to smile and laugh and impart her baby wisdom. But I know better. I know that any second, the baby beauty will become a monster beast, so I am determined to put said baby down for a nap before the ugly transformation occurs.

Sweet Sophie cuddles in my arms until we approach her bedroom and I start closing the blinds; then she cries as if she’s been in this torture chamber before, and she can’t, just can’t have her toes broken again.

I try some sweet talk, which is rejected with vehement protestations, and so I gently release the writhing screaming banshee into the crib. She peers up at me, one tiny baby tear falling down her face, with an expression that says, “How could you do such a horrid horrid thing to me?” The look is so scathing, laced with hurt, that I avert my eyes and whisper, like the coward that I am,  “nighty night, have a good nap!” and race out of there as if being attacked by a host of hungry hornets.

Then the wait begins. Generally, the screams last less than a minute. I stand in the kitchen as if I’m baking or cleaning, but actually I’m just listening attentively. The next 2 minutes are low-pitched complains. “Gr pla koey dkod.” I don’t want to even guess what she’s saying about me.

And finally silence. Now that I’m a seasoned grandmother of three years, I know better, but before, as a newbie, I used to tiptoe in after just 5 minutes of silence and look down at the little angel, sound asleep. Until suddenly, she’d open her huge blue eyes, send a look to me like ‘aha!’ and jump on her knees, rewinding her protests from just a short while earlier.

Now, in my learned wisdom, I find something to do for at least 8 minutes. THEN I tiptoe into my granddaughter’s room, ear pricked for any sound other than the soft sighs of a sleeping baby. If all is clear, I avoid the creaking floorboards and stand on the rug, looking at this new human being who sleeps as if she lives in paradise.

Her arms are flung above her head in complete comfort. Ah, to have shoulders like that once more. Her chubby legs are covered in a soft fuzzy blanket up to her chin. Her mouth puckers into a pink rosebud. Long eyelashes curl over her softly closed eyes, and I thank God for the opportunity to witness this sleeping bundle of love.

Grilled Cheese

/ roughwighting / 16 Comments

“Sit down and don’t move.”

This is the first time in my life I can order my mom around, and she has to listen!

She sits on the couch, back against the long floral armrest, head against an added pillow, legs straight in front of her on the rest of the couch, more pillows raising her feet.

“But,” she protests, “I know where the butter is, and the pan to grill the bread, and don’t use the new tomatoes, use the ones in the vegetable bin, and I’m not sure if the cheddar cheese is on the left side of the refrigerator, or the bottom shelf, and…”

“Stop!” I command. “I can figure it out.”

I’m not a kid any more. In fact, I’ve raised children, now adults, who thrived on my cooking, but my mom still thinks I can’t make a grilled cheese sandwich without her help.

I take a deep breath and look at her sternly but lovingly. “You need to keep your feet up right now. You’ve just had surgery. I have taken a five-hour train trip to stay with you and wait on you. So sit down and enjoy it!” I leave the room with a smirk on my face.

Of course, five minutes later I’m cursing under my breath. Where the hell does she store her pans? Her apartment is small, her kitchen as tiny as an elf’s, and it has already taken me 4 minutes, 38 seconds to find a knife to cut the cheese and a spatula.

No pan = no grilled cheese sandwiches, so I open more cabinets and grit my teeth.

“The bottom of the stove,” mom shouts from the living room.

I open the drawer below the oven, seemingly hidden until now, and sweetly shout out, “got it!” Why she couldn’t have told me that in the first place?  I whistle happily as I slice and melt the butter in the pan.

“Don’t use oil or that spray stuff, butter works best!” she suggests unnecessarily.

I walk briskly back into the living room. Tennis is on the T.V. “Thirty-love,” the commentator whispers excitedly. Yup, I think, it’s 30-0 right here, in this little apartment, and I’m the one not getting my serves in.

“Mom, luv,” I begin.

She looks up at me innocently. I walk over and fluff up the pillows behind her, check her water class. It could use more ice. “Yes?” she asks. “Do you need any help?”

“Not at all!” I answer. I pick up her glass and announce. “You need more water. Ten glasses a day – at least!” I bounce back to the kitchen and notice that the butter is turning brown. Whoops. As I add more ice to her glass, I throw some slices of bread in the pan. Race the ice water back to mom and her tray, then race back to the kitchen. Now the bread is turning brown, and I haven’t added the cheese yet.

“Damn,” I shout out.

Two seconds later, I hear the clip clip clip of her walker, and she is standing beside me, clucking and reaching out for the cheese, the butter, the tomato. In a span of three minutes, the smells of a toasty warm grilled cheese and tomato sandwich is wafting through the small three-room apartment.

“Yum!” she says, turning off the stove top. “Sit down and I’ll fix you a glass of diet coke. I’m starving, aren’t you?”

As she arranges a dish on her walker tray and sashays back toward the couch, I admit defeat, but also realize a cheery thought.

She’s healing quite well, much faster than the doctor’s prediction.