Mama, it’s your birthday, which means it’s nearly spring, which means exodus and green buds and Queen Esther, stories of war, deception and peace. I hated the dressing up for Purim as a kid—I never understood the assignment. We made a lot of noise and learned vague lessons about good and evil, and later, my father explained to me quite carefully that there was really no such thing as good and evil—only consequences. Which hurt my little baby philosophical heart.
Mama, because it’s your birthday, I wish I could buy you the perfect burger from Wendy’s but you were always so picky about what they put on it, and even if it wasn’t the burger, you’d berate anyone who made you a sandwich for getting it wrong, and when you died, I looked up at the Sarasota sky and thought, that’s a perfect sun, and that’s a perfect cloud, and I thought, you’d love to eat the sun-cloud as a perfect sandwich.
Mama, I’m not sure what these words are coming out directed at you. It’s the last day of a monthlong assignment I gave myself to write daily and see what finds me. It’s you—asking for my attention, yet again.
OK, I’ll tell you about the last few days with you on earth. Your three girls walked through a park in the Amish part of town and saw a blue heron shimmering in a patch of sunlight in the river. So astounded were we by the heron’s beauty that Nina’s yellow amber beads broke and scattered everywhere like shooting stars. We laughed, we cried searching for them but never found them all. I’m sure there’s still a bead or two hidden like golden eggs in that park.
Mama, you taught us how to talk to strangers and so we talked to the ladies in their bonnets playing shuffleboard that day in the Sarasota heat. I never knew the Amish ladies from Indiana pooled money for the long bus rides south for the winter, snow birds. They denounced technology but made an exception for an engine that could pluck them from a winter of despair in the Midwest. It was fun to chat it up with them but then again, I knew you were dying and felt distracted.
Mama, when you sent me out for pies, I decided to do a story on them, the history of a famous Amish pie shop in Florida. I ate a lot of pie—for research. Key lime, French silk, apple. I met the lady who married into the tradition, and she was on mission to convince me that a marriage was forever and so was her devotion to a life of pies. They made thousands a week—and I wrote about this with the attention of a surgeon while you were making your cosmic transition. We got so many free slices, and I know you winked at me for that.
Mama, how silly to think I keep on writing into the void of a motherless future. It took me a while after you slipped out of here to realize that I wished you loved me, but not you-you, more like, a mother-you, universal-mother-love-you. I’m glad you came to me through the psychic medium to shake your hips and talk about your porcelain dolls and tell me you were healed and whole in out there in the heavens of your flea-market dreams.
Mama, I hear you in my head sometimes. “Mand,” “I don’t think so,” “Get out of here!” “Over my dead body.” Ha! You loved to say that. Now that you’re dead, I still try to not to make you mad, and hope you’re feeling proud of the way the three of us have figured out how to live our lives without you. It’s easier than we thought because we know you’re still here—just out there—real busy—on a long ride—hunting for a bargain or a treasure or a slice of pie out there in the clear, blue skies.
Transit Slips, #28
Mama, because it’s your birthday, I wish I could buy you the perfect burger from Wendy’s but you were always so picky about what they put on it, and even if it wasn’t the burger, you’d berate anyone who made you a sandwich for getting it wrong, and when you died, I looked up at the Sarasota sky and thought, that’s a perfect sun, and that’s a perfect cloud, and I thought, you’d love to eat the sun-cloud as a perfect sandwich.
Mama, I’m not sure what these words are coming out directed at you. It’s the last day of a monthlong assignment I gave myself to write daily and see what finds me. It’s you—asking for my attention, yet again.
OK, I’ll tell you about the last few days with you on earth. Your three girls walked through a park in the Amish part of town and saw a blue heron shimmering in a patch of sunlight in the river. So astounded were we by the heron’s beauty that Nina’s yellow amber beads broke and scattered everywhere like shooting stars. We laughed, we cried searching for them but never found them all. I’m sure there’s still a bead or two hidden like golden eggs in that park.
Mama, you taught us how to talk to strangers and so we talked to the ladies in their bonnets playing shuffleboard that day in the Sarasota heat. I never knew the Amish ladies from Indiana pooled money for the long bus rides south for the winter, snow birds. They denounced technology but made an exception for an engine that could pluck them from a winter of despair in the Midwest. It was fun to chat it up with them but then again, I knew you were dying and felt distracted.
Mama, when you sent me out for pies, I decided to do a story on them, the history of a famous Amish pie shop in Florida. I ate a lot of pie—for research. Key lime, French silk, apple. I met the lady who married into the tradition, and she was on mission to convince me that a marriage was forever and so was her devotion to a life of pies. They made thousands a week—and I wrote about this with the attention of a surgeon while you were making your cosmic transition. We got so many free slices, and I know you winked at me for that.
Mama, how silly to think I keep on writing into the void of a motherless future. It took me a while after you slipped out of here to realize that I wished you loved me, but not you-you, more like, a mother-you, universal-mother-love-you. I’m glad you came to me through the psychic medium to shake your hips and talk about your porcelain dolls and tell me you were healed and whole in out there in the heavens of your flea-market dreams.
Mama, I hear you in my head sometimes. “Mand,” “I don’t think so,” “Get out of here!” “Over my dead body.” Ha! You loved to say that. Now that you’re dead, I still try to not to make you mad, and hope you’re feeling proud of the way the three of us have figured out how to live our lives without you. It’s easier than we thought because we know you’re still here—just out there—real busy—on a long ride—hunting for a bargain or a treasure or a slice of pie out there in the clear, blue skies.
Transit Slips, #28
