I was out late last night at a concert with my teenager. Total bonding experience, and great to see how even punk and goth music can still send a scorch of artful rebellion screaming through adult souls. I think our culture needs a bunch of this right now and I’m so happy to know teen spirit still carries the special smell of victory…
I was even happier to get to shake off some wonky-work funk at Fenway Park. Yay for a great night.
An hour ago, I call my mom to tell her about the show. She’s thrilled for her granddaughter. She wants all the details. I try to describe the full sound & spectacle by a big picture categorization: “kind of like Bowie, but not,” I say.
She may not know what I mean by that. The phone cuts out anyway.
We reconnect, I tell her how exhausted I am, and she suggests I nap. Everyone else in my family can nap but me, and all on demand. It’s a day-break failing, but keeps me making stuff like this here post, so whatever. I love to work.
I say, “Nowhere dark enough here for me to sleep.” My mom nudges, “you know what I do when that happens?”
I think I know, and I’m pretty sure I’m not interested.
“I put a dark sock across my eyes to sleep”
My mom does this kind of stuff with wild practicality and in-your-face absurdist humor, if you see her that is. She’s always totally committed to the action, as long as it takes for someone to get the joke… or for her to get a decent nap.
I tell her with my highest falutin’ tone that, I have higher standards than following in her footsteps with a stinky old sock across my eyes, but appreciate the tip. If I’m tired enough, maybe I will stoop to such a solution, but it has to be a Gold Toe stocking.
We laugh, and she adds that the sock is always clean. I tell her I appreciate that, but the pills from the thread bare spots remain, and you can probably smell the vestiges of feet while trying to dream. Not my thing, I say with a pile of snob on top. I’m trying to ‘elevate’ my family, as you know, and she just laughs. You know, I’m angling to pay for spa stuff, not just socks.
She laughs, I laugh. Queens of absurdity. My goodness I’m lucky. They always say, necessity is the mother of invention. I forgot my mom invents with modest materials and a redonkulous sense of humor. On a good day, so do I.
We chatted about how she could patent the process of walking across the room, opening a sock drawer, feeling for the thickest, darkest Smart Wool sock, and laying it ever so carefully across ones eyes, using the heel portion to give that little extra bit of light blocking around the nose. Voila! The perfect solution for room darkening. Doesn’t cost a cent. She says, “oh yeah.”
We laugh a whole bunch more. Me for being such a materialistic elitist, her for getting my goat for years and years. She says she feels my love. I know she’s a special kind of rock star. The kind I love.
How lucky I am, when you come right down to it. Mary’s one heck of a mama. I hope I can grow up to be one too. #GratitudeIsARoomDarkeningSock
FOOTNOTES & SUB-SUBTEXT ;)
I want to give an eye opening thank you to Artist/Writer Darby Hudson. I love his book Darby Love and recommend you follow his Instagram feed for everyday inspiration from his truth telling. This post probably would not be here, nor would my awareness of appreciation for what I have today, were it not for him doing what he does. I feel his grief and his love, and his mom’s spirit through his creative works. Thank you Darby, and thank you Darby’s mom.
The concert was My Chemical Romance with The Idles opening.