My mom as a cool kid

Her story, my poem

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

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HER HIGH-SCHOOL SELF


Of all the stories that my mother told
about the girl she was, this was my favorite:

Her high-school self (this is 1940, or a year
on either side) marching with teenage zeal
into the office of the vice-principal: –- Sir,
she says, please let me clean your glasses, I promise
you’ll be glad I did. He then in mild surprise
surrendering his wire-rims, she off with them forthwith
to the nearest girl’s room, soap and warm water
rinsing away the film of prints and dust,
to her so irksome, because so simply remedied; 
a careful drying with her handkerchief
(cotton, in those days), then back to the office
of the vice-principal, who receives his wire-rims
again and slips them on and blinks
in mild surprise once more. –- Oh, that is better,
he says, much better, will you come every day
and clean them for me? And she, compact
of forthright adolescent courtesy, replies: 
–- No, sir, I won’t. You can do it yourself.

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[You can listen to an audio version of the poem — and I hope you will, this one was fun to record for you — using the little widget above the photograph.]

Right around the time I was old enough to be aware of my mother as a person, she was doing her best to regroup after a life-changing illness that nobody around her — least of all herself — knew how to acknowledge or accommodate. My memories of her fun and tenderness and (let’s just say it) grit are overlaid with memories of my own worry and sense of helplessness about her. As counterpoint, I have stories from my older sisters, whose memories of her begin well before she was ill; most telling of all, I have some stories she told me about her own life.

The story retold in this poem comforts and tickles me with a look at one way Mom and I were alike as teenagers. We were plenty different too — she was on the tennis team in her day, I was in the Madrigal Singers in mine — but what we had in common was a sublime fearlessness about approaching adults who were clearly in need of our particular competence and showing them what was what. Not rude about it for a second, heavens no; not mealy-mouthed, either. Did that translate as we got older into how we approached, for example, our co-workers and our bosses? Why, yes, yes it did. Not the most convenient legacy, Mom, but a pretty decent one even so. Thanks for that, and for the story.