I went out today to run errands. I don’t know why it is so difficult to find an 8x16” picture frame. Evidently they are scarce in north Seattle. I often go shopping or ‘run errands’ most Sunday afternoons. I suppose some things I really need to do, e.g. grocery shopping. I must replenish my supplies of sustenance. However long I shop I have a feeling of dread. Like the going out and looking around is just a way for me to avoid those four walls back at home, because when I am enclosed within them I so easily slip into languor. So I walk up and down the aisles, looking for things I might need.
On the way home I spontaneously turned into Home Depot. Something drew me into the store. I walked down the aises. I looked at refrigerators. I looked at cabinets, shower heads, shower racks, and then I began to think, this is something I could buy for momma. She might need this brass shower rack. Then it really hit me why I was there. It isn’t fair. What has happened to her. It isn’t fair what is happening to her now.
She put up with an unpleasant husband for most of her adult life. The last four years he was essentially housebound and she was bound with him, dutifully caring for him without complaint. After he died she finally got a long overdue respite, and was able to go out into the world again and absorb the sounds and colors. ‘I wouldn’t bring him back for anything, ‘ she announced to everyone within earshot days after her funeral. She was finally free. But this turned out to be only a short window between tribulations. A five year window before she herself has become essentially housebound and dependent on others for basic care.
Finally that is what I have been seeking all these weeks and months and years. This realization. But there are selfish motives as well. This seeking was also motivated by the hope for her approval. This started in a concrete fashion when I moved back home in 2005. Things were in a general state of disrepair around the house. I found myself frequently heading to Home Depot looking for home improvement projects to start. Since I had a limited income, a lot of it was just wishful thinking.
Therefore I did a lot of improvising. One project was salvaging and restoring an old porch swing and hanging it on the front porch. It turned out to be a big hit with everyone. Early risers could always greet the sunrise swaying in the swing. When I went home last March the swing was covered in dust. I gave it a thorough cleaning so momma could sit in it. When I went into the living room to announce that I had cleaned it for her her silent face beamed. Although she didn’t sit in it the whole time I was there—she complained it was too drafty on the porch—I knew that my effort had met her approval.
So is that what I have been seeking in a convoluted way in retail home improvement stores? The acceptance of my mother? The prime motivation of every child? In essence, yes. Everyone knows how a look of approval from a mother can send a surge of elation through the heart. A look of disapproval, however, can cause indelible devastation. We go off on fool’s missions in retail havens but occasionally the undercurrent of truth manages to well to the surface and make us keenly aware of what we have really been pursuing all the time. Today that happened to be in the bath accessories aisle of Home Depot.
