Cousins At Christmas

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Cousins.

They are our first friends in this life.  We can not recall when we met them.  Because?  We were probably wearing diapers.  We were probably fighting over a squeaky toy in a playpen.  Our memories don’t go that far back.

Cousins.  The ones to impress.  The ones that impress us.  It goes back and forth.  One visit …………….I’m the cool one.  The next visit………….I have a lot to learn.

Christmas on Columbus Street wasn’t all that complicated.  My mother fought us all off until the middle of December.  She didn’t care that someone else in the house was in the mood to put up the tree.  It was too early………………her house wasn’t clean enough.

Oh, sigh.

My mother’s house was always clean.

But, Christmas decor only graced the house when it was all shined up.  Windex stunk up the rooms.  Murphy’s Oil Soap was rubbed on anything made of wood.  Christmas could not come to our house until everything gleamed.

So, I was surprised one year.  The year my mother told me to drag the Christmas tree out of the eaves a few days after Thanksgiving.

I tilted my head to the side.  I stared the woman in the face.  I asked her if she was feeling alright.  I wanted to put my hand to her forehead and feel for her temperature.  But, I was also too afraid to do it.  I would have gotten swatted.

“What?  What’s with the look?  You’re always begging to decorate the minute the Thanksgiving turkey leftovers are in the Tupperware.  I hold you off until December 15th so the neighbors don’t think we’re nuts…………….now, I tell you to go and put up the tree………and you’re giving me attitude?  Is there no making you happy? ” my mother asked with a roll of her eyes.

She took the ever present dish towel off her shoulder.  She twirled it in her hands.  She was ready to do the towel snap.  That snap in your general direction got you moving.  She never actually connected; but boy; she came close quite a few times.

I didn’t budge.  I was twelve years old now.  My mother and her snapping dish towel left me unmoved.

“Get in the kitchen.” she said.  “We’re going to have a cup of tea.  And, then you’re going to put up that Christmas tree and decorate it.  Tonight.”

So, I sat on a kitchen chair and watched as my mother put exactly two cups of water into the tea kettle.  She put the burner on high.  She leaned back against the sink and stared deeply into my eyes while she waited for the kettle to whistle.

I stared back.

Maybe you don’t understand about mother/daughter staring contests.  Let me fill you in.  A strong mother gets you into a stationary position.  She removes herself to about five feet away.  Her eyes stare into your own.  Mother doesn’t speak.  She stares.

The weak break and start to babble just because the stare down makes them uncomfortable.

By the time I was twelve…………….I was quite capable of just staring right back.

“Harumph”…………said my mother as she broke the gaze and filled the tea cups.

She plopped the tea cup in front of me.

“My cousins are coming for a visit.  They are driving from Charleton.  They want to have an early Christmas with me.  So…………I need that tree in the corner.  I will do all the cleaning.  You just decorate the tree and disappear.” my mother said as she blew across the top of her tea cup.

I continued to stare at her over my own tea cup.  Years and years……………of being denied an early Christmas tree…………and I was supposed to snap to………….and put up the tree when I actually wasn’t in the mood……………….because of Charleton cousins coming to visit.

“What’s in it for me?” I asked.  “Do I also get to put up the Christmas village?”

I loved my Christmas village.  The log cabins.  The trees that were forever falling over.  The elves sledding down hills of styrofoam and bunting.  The reindeer twice as high as the little houses.  The villagers skating on a pond made out of a mirror.

This was clutter to my mother.  It made her twitch.

I was a good negotiator for aged twelve but I was denied.

“No freaking village.  I clean the house.  I make freaking pigs in a blanket.  You make cookies.  I shake up some cocktails.  You go to your room.  My cousins and I talk about way back when.  With a Christmas tree in the corner.” my mother said as she sank her teeth into an Oreo.

“I don’t know.” I sputtered out.

My mother narrowed her eyes at me.

“Oh, my sweet.  You owe me.  You owe me big time.” she kept the negotiations going.

“I owe you?  What on earth are you talking about?” I asked.

I really wanted to know.

“Do you remember the last time my cousins visited?  They got here after your bedtime.  We caught up for an hour or so.  I imagined you snoring in your bed.  We sneaked up the stairs to catch sight of my little cherub all rosy in her bed.  And, where were you?  Hiding some where.  No where to be found………………  you little turd.” my mother accused with a hint of appreciation in her voice.

My mother always noticed when I behaved just the way she would have.

Okay.  That wasn’t my idea.  It was my brother’s.  He didn’t like being stared at in his bed.  He didn’t like to pretend to be asleep while a half dozen women he didn’t really know oohed and ahhed over him.  I didn’t like it much either.  So we hid in the very back of the cedar closet.

“My cousins wanted to shine a flash light into your little angelic face for five seconds.  They wanted to whisper to each other how much you look like me……………but no, you couldn’t cooperate.  You had to hide like a numbskull in the back of the closet…………….you owe me……………….go put up that tree.” my mother ended her speech with her lips all pursed up like she’d just sucked on something very sour.

I went and put up the tree.  I also brought down the box containing the Christmas village.  My mother kicked that box behind an overly stuffed chair in the living room  She cleaned.  She cooked.  She went to the package store and bought spirits she wasn’t used to.

My father went to work the night shift. My brother was safe off at college.  Mom stared out the picture window as night fell.  She awaited the arrival of her cousins.

A car pulled into the driveway with high beams on.

“They’re here.  Go to bed.  This is my time with my cousins.  No kids allowed.” my mother said she she pushed me up the stairs and shut the door.

I thought that was a little harsh.  I was all grown up now at twelve years old.  I liked pigs in a blanket.  I liked Christmas cookies.  I didn’t hold out much hope for a high ball in a frosted glass.  But, really!  7 p.m. was a little early to be told to go to bed.

Oh, I knew why.  Young ears weren’t allowed to hear the stories of days of yore.  The stories about how my mother could burp the whole alphabet when she was twelve years old.  The story about how she had beat up a grown man that talked dirty to her little sister back in the day.  The stories about the newest bride in the family giving birth to a twelve pound baby two months early.

You get my point.

My mother wanted her cousins all to herself.

Well, I understood that.  I listened to the roar of laughter from downstairs.  I turned the volume of my little black and white portable TV up.  I was engrossed in an old version The Christmas Carol on the little television…………but, still.  I wished I was part of the cousin party downstairs.

I put the cousin fun out of my mind for quite a while…………until I couldn’t stand it anymore………….in other words, I had to pee………….really badly.

I decided to sneak down the stairs.  It was a small house.  But, if I opened the staircase door……………took a fast left and circled around to the bathroom…………perhaps, I wouldn’t interrupt the party.

I could pull this off.

I didn’t pull it off.

I inched the door open at the bottom of the stairs.  I held my breath and waited for a half a minute.  I pushed the door open further and went to take a left……………..towards the bathroom and relief.

A female voice shrieked.

“Oh.  My.   God!  Ellie!  She looks just the way you did when you were young!  Get over here, Darlene!” a cousin voice insisted.

I stood in the middle of the living room instead.  I was glad that I had washed and curled my hair just that morning.  I was glad that I was wearing my good housecoat……………the one that wasn’t covered in cat hair.

“Hi?” I replied.

Four women jumped up from the comfy sofa and armchairs.  They engulfed me.  All I can say is that I knew in that second…………….that if I was ever in trouble…………and showed up at any of their doorsteps………………….these women would take me in.

Why?

Because.  I was Ellie’s.

Female voices came at me.  It was a symphony of love.  I was beautiful.  I looked just like my mother.  Was I as funny as they had heard I was?  Could I sing for them?  They fought over me.  Come, sit next to me they all said.

I hadn’t meant to.  But, I had taken over my mother’s party.

And, I still had to pee.  Badly.

“Um…………..Hi, I just sneaked down to use the bathroom.” I said as I ran into the little room and shut the door.  I didn’t lock it.  I felt like maybe I should.

What was that?  A wave of love from women I had only seen twice in my life!  This was kind of awful……………..this was kind of wonderful.

I did my business and went back into the living room.  I sat and chatted amiably like someone that wasn’t twelve.  I was hoping for fourteen.  I glanced at my mother out of the corner of my eye.  She didn’t have a dish towel to swat at me.  But, I was gauging her reaction to me being in the middle of the cousin reunion.

Her reaction said that I could stay.

The cousins filled me in on all the hi-jinx they used to get up to.  I take it that my mother was the leader in all the almost awful shenanigans they used to get up to.  I was kind of proud of her.

An hour went by quickly.  I glanced out of the picture window.  I noticed snow cascading down past the street lamp in front of our little house.

“Um, ladies?  I know you have quite a drive to get home…………………but, I’ve noticed that it is snowing like crazy……………I hope that you can …………….” I started.

One of the cousins jumped up and looked out the widow.  She then jumped up into the air with her fists towards the ceiling and yelled at top volume “Sleep Over!”

“Sleep Over!  Sleep Over!  Sleep Over!” the grown women chanted.

Then came a lone voice………………..”Pizza!  Pizza! Pizza!”

My mother grabbed me by the corner of my housecoat.  She dragged me into the kitchen.

“Okay.  It’s an overnighter.  And, they want pizza.  Your father isn’t here to pick it up.  Can you walk that far in the snow?” my mother asked.

What?

“Ma.  Pizza places deliver.  Just because we always pick up the pizza at Vic’s………..doesn’t mean that they don’t deliver.” I whispered to her.

“Crap!  I don’t have any money!  Why oh why does your father leave me with no money!” she wailed in a hissed whisper.

“I have money, Ma.  I have like $60 in my paper route tips in the drawer upstairs.  It’s my Christmas shopping money but you can pay me back.” I offered.

My mother put her hands up to cool her hot cheeks.  In that moment I realized that this woman should get out more.  My mother should spend more time with her friends.  Her cousins.  Instead of taking care of me.

“I’ll handle it, Ma!” I said.

“Okay!” I said to the little crowd in the living room.  “Large hamburger pizza!  Large pepperoni!  Does that sound good?  I’ll call for the pizza and then when the phone is free……………call home and tell them that you’re spending the night! Sleep Over!  Sleep Over!  Sleep Over!” I declared to an excited group of cousins.

I went upstairs and raided my pajama drawer while we waited for the pizza.  I threw a load of flannel this and thats on the floor of the living room.

“Get comfy, ladies!” I told them.

They got comfy.

That was the one and only time I ever ate pizza in the living room on Columbus Street.  I was one of the girls.  We had a great old time.  We ate.  We sang Christmas carols.  I dragged the box of Christmas village decorations out from behind the chair about midnight.

The cousins set up my village.  They argued about the height of the sledding slopes.  The placement of the little church……………………the arrangement of the reindeer.

My mother was on her knees with her cousins……………..she was wearing flannel pajamas with penguins on them…………….she threw back her head and she laughed and she sang with them.  Ma placed elves outside cabins and fought with trees that didn’t want to stay upright.

I saw the girl that my mother used to be that night.  We got to be girls together that night.

I’ll never forget it.

The next generation of cousins: the ones I shared shenanigans with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Facts of Life

My mother was a wise woman.  Even as a kid………….I knew it.  She was perhaps a little too private.  A little too reticent in public.  She could cut loose and be herself when her sisters and cousins were around.

I enjoyed those days.

I would just sit back and watch my mother enjoy herself and others.  I knew I was seeing the real Ellie that had been there all along…………..long before I became part of this world.

This Ellie threw her head back and laughed.  She got a little too loud.  She talked over a sister when they had a “remember when” argument.  She was the most “herself” when she was in the middle of her tribe of women.

I wasn’t that old when my mother told me the facts of life.  Oh, don’t hide your head under a pillow.  You don’t need to blush.  I’m not talking about the birds and the bees.

This talk about the facts of life had everything to do with being a woman.  Nothing to do with sex.

My mother and I sat at the kitchen table.  My father and brothers were out of the house.  We sat and ate crackers and peanut butter.  We drank tea.

“I’m not one of those mothers.” she said to me.  “I don’t think those kinds of mothers are doing their kids any favors.”

“Huh?” I replied as I licked peanut butter off of my fingers.

“Use a napkin, for heaven’s sake.  You weren’t raised in a barn.” she added.

I guess barn yard animals don’t use napkins now that I think of it.

‘Sorry, Mom………….you were saying…………you’re not that kind of mother.” I prompted after seeing the ticked off look on her face.

“I’m not going to sit around all day telling you that you’re perfect.  That you’re the best ever.  That you’re the bees knees.  That’s not my style.  Other mothers do that, you know.  It’s very sickening.  And, they’re just setting up their little princes and princesses up for a big fall. ” she went on.

I had no idea where this was going but I decided not to interrupt her by saying so.

“I’m all seeing.  I’m all knowing.  I have eyes in the front and in the back of my head.  I have spies.  I also find receipts.  In bags.  You’re eleven years old and you think you’re going to spend your paper route money on mascara of all things?  You think I won’t find out about this?  You think you’re going to paint your eyes up like a koala bear and I won’t know?” she sputtered out.

Okay.  I guess I had just wasted $1.29 on Maybelline mascara.  I wasn’t even going to waste my time with “All my friends are wearing it.  Their mother’s don’t mind.”  I knew what her next line would be……….”And, if your friends jumped off a bridge would you follow them?”

Instead I just sipped more tea.  I shut my mouth.  I let her go for it.  It.  Whatever she was going for.

“You will not wear makeup until you are thirteen.  If I see you looking in the mirror too much I will slap it out of your hand.  I can not handle it if you turn into one of those girls.” my mother said.

“One of what girls?” I asked.

She ignored my question.  She had a speech planned and anything coming out of my mouth was knocking her off her stride.

“Are you listening?  Because, I’m only going to say this once.  I will never say this again because I don’t believe in kissing up to my own kids.  I am only going to say this once.  So, listen up.”  she said earnestly as she leaned towards me.

“I’m listening.” I whispered.  This woman that was my mother was starting to freak me out.

“You are a beautiful girl.  You are going to be a beautiful woman.  Women aren’t going to like you for it.  Men are going to make idiots of themselves in front of you because of it.  But, fight it.  Fight it.  That’s not all that you are.  That’s not all that you are going to be.” she declared.

At that moment I wanted to run into the bathroom where the lighting wasn’t half bad………I needed to gaze into the mirror and figure out if she could possibly be talking to me.

She saw what I was thinking.  My mother threw back her head and laughed.  “Thank goodness!  I’ve gotten to you in time.” she said,

Oh, believe me.  Now, I was listening.

“Good looking women…….that get through life being good looking women…….live a shallow life.  You are smart.  We will send you to college.  You can become anything that you want to be with an education.  Don’t you ever, EVER, think that you are nothing but a pretty face.” she said with intent.

“A pretty face and a kind heart can get you far.  But, it’s not far enough.  You stick to your books.  You climb the trees.  You roller skate.  Sell lemonade with your friends. ” she went on.

“You take your time growing up.  Once you’re an adult there is no going back.  Don’t you dare rush it.  There is plenty of time for mascara and lipstick.  Nylon stockings and high heels.  But, you have years yet!  Years of jumping into piles of leave.  Years of trick or treating.  Years of waiting up for Santa Claus to come.” she seemed to sputter out.

“Don’t you dare rush it.” she whispered to me.

“Wow!  Mom!  I don’t exactly know where you’re going with all of this.  I bought a mascara.  They didn’t ask me for ID.  Perhaps, you are making a little too much of this?” I asked.

I have always been a little bit of a wise ass.

“You don’t have sisters.” she said.

Like that made sense.

“I had a lot of sisters.  My sisters told me to slow down.  They told me when a boy was no good.  My sisters wiped makeup off of my face and buttoned my sweater up to my chin.  My sisters taught me everything.” she said as she poured me more tea.

“Some day soon that phone is going to be ringing off the hook.  The doorbell will be ringing.  You don’t have sisters to fight off all those boys.  So, I will be doing it instead.  You stay away from pretty boys.  You wait for handsome.  You demand respect.  You read your books.  You go out with your girlfriends.  I’ll tell you when the boy is worth your time.” she said as she swirled a teaspoon of sugar into her tea.

All this because I bought a mascara.

“And I’ll tell you one more thing because I hear your father pulling up into the driveway.  Boys.  A dime a dozen.  A big fat waste of time.  Don’t give one more than two weeks of your time.  Two weeks.  You’ll know if he’s for you or not.  Spend your teenage years with the girls.  Make friends.  Your girlfriends will hold you up all the days of your life.” my mother said.

“You can only have one man.  But, girlfriends?  You can have as many as you want.  Hold up other women.  Tell them that they are beautiful.  Tell them that they are strong.  Tell them that they are capable of anything.  Make sure that they know……………….women can change the world.  Especially, if they do it together.” she said.

“So……………..my beautiful girl………….you will some day be a woman with a beautiful face…..but, remember.  You are so much more.  Search.  Find what makes you happy even when you know you can’t always be happy.  Search some more. “she said as my father came through the kitchen door.

“Throw away the mascara, Little Girl.  Ride your bike.  Dance.  Sing.  Get out your typewriter and write your stories.” my wise mother told me.