June 2, 2003

• Causing Problems

  
  

  You know, when you drive up to the house and you see people start moving the breakable objects, it's both a good and bad thing.  I mean no one wants to think that they are a rolling disaster waiting to happen, but at least I know that when the storm hits, the damage will be minimized. 

  
  

  I arrived in Arkansas about 5:30 yesterday afternoon.  It was a long, long, long drive that was made bearable by the intervention of an angel, but that's a story for another day.  My aunts and uncles came out to meet me.  Many of them looking older and weaker than I remember.  Aunt Oleta, Grandma's baby sister, looks and sounds so much like Grandma Lillie these days that its a shock.  But it's good to see them.

  
  

  One thing you should know is that I have two sisters.  Fugitive and Sam (littleredtahbo on Xanga.)  When we were children, we attracted quite a bit of attention for our appearance.  See I the oldest had dark hair, almost black.  Sam had firey red hair.  And Fugitive was an ash blonde.  Many of our relatives kept us straight by the color of our hair.  But we have all grown and aged, and things change.  Hair color changes.  Sometimes by nature and sometimes by design.  These days, Fugitive's hair is darkened almost to the rich dark brown that is my natural color.  Sam's has been lightened to verge on blonde.  And I am now the fiery red-head. 

  
  

  I don't know why it is that it's easier to keep the others straight, but apparently my red hair has thrown everyone off balance.  There were takes and double takes, people keep calling me Sam, asking me if I've been out in the sun that much, and the kids want to touch my hair.  It's just hair color. 

  
  

  Or maybe it's not.  Maybe it's something more.  My mom has told the story all my life of expecting that I would be born a red-head to match her.  When the nurse showed her that bundle of blankets with a thick shock of black hair out the top, she was convinced that they'd brought her the wrong baby.  For nine months she'd visualized her first-born being a carbon copy of her wild Irish looks, and well, I didn't fit the mental image.

  
  

  Mom and I have never had the easiest of relationships.  She has demanded more of me, and shown me less praise than she's offered the others.  I'm not just saying this because it's my perception, it's the way that she descrobes our relationship.  I've always felt that I needed to do one more thing, make one more 'A', have one more baby, clean my house one more time to win her approval.  I'm almost forty years old.  (June 18 - send presents)  It would seem that I could reach a level of peace with my mother, something that would make me comfortable standing before her knowing that she knows at a glance tha I haven't lost that five pounds that I've been struggling to shed.  As soon as I walk through her door, I'm a little girl wanting a hug from my Mommy and wondering what I need to fix to be good enough for her to just hug me instead of sending me to wash my face. 

  
  

   This time things are off with the family.  My hair, now the color of my mother's in her younger days, has moved the ground beneath their feet.  I wonder if my mom sees now that little girl that she expected to see when I was born, if she finally feels as though I'm her child.

  
  

  While the adults were standing around talking my children were not idle.  After a day of relative peace and quiet, working puzzles, reading, napping, plotting exactly where we were on the big map ~ they had energy to spare.  Unfotunately, they spared no tomato.  Daddy has a small garden with a couple dozen prized tomato plants all loaded with hard green fruit.  I should say the were loaded.  Tucker picked every tomato from the vines within the first five minutes we were here.  I'm sure that will be a funny story some day soon.  Maybe as soon as lunch time today when my aunts have promised that they will fry them.  Fried green tomatoes around a huge dining table with everyone trying to figure out how we fit together without Grandma at the center. 

  
  

  Some things never change, and some things do.

  • 10:13 am
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