Sputterpub's Blog

My friend Meg had an awesome mom. Hildy was the only mother I knew of whom I approved. And I approved of her so much I wanted her for myself.

I would have shared her with her own kids. I liked Meg and her younger sister Lark, and everything I heard about their big brother, who was mostly away at college when I was spending time with the family. I was close to Meg the last year and a half of high school, tapering off to no contact after our first year at different Cal campuses.

So it was 1966 and 1967. I met Meg at school and we took to hanging out together some afternoons. That meant long walks, and those ended up at one of our homes and amid ice cream or our sophisticated snack: sliced mushrooms sandwiched between fat Wampum corn chips.

Both of us had hospitable homes. Each of us was the oldest daughter of a healthy lasting marriage. Our parents met and liked each other enough that we all got together sometimes to make meals. The fathers took up scuba diving along with our younger sibs. Cross-socializing occurred.

I liked them all, but my favorite was Hildy. She was eccentric. Creative. Cute.

And she gave us privacy. Meg and I were free to hang out in the kitchen, eating our cornchip/mushroom canapes as fast as we assembled them, talking about our gang of weirdos in math class, the literary magazine we thought we’d launch, how we’d spend our independent, free-wheeling future lives.

Now and then Hildy would wander in and smile at us. She was a petite woman, smaller-boned than both of her daughters, and she usually dressed in a gray sweatshirt and a short well-worn denim skirt. She had naturally curly naturally graying hair, cut short around her face. She was a potter. She had a wheel and her garage workshop contained a small kiln. I still have a few bowls she gave me.

In contrast, my mother tried to be stylish. She made no claim to creativity (“I can’t even draw a straight line!” (as if anyone could)). My mother wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the same outfit two days in a row, or white after Labor Day, or mixing dots and stripes. My mother had no passion, so she was always available, when we were around, to ask us questions, offer us snacks or advice, give us unreal warnings about carrying hats and gloves to the City, never smoking in public, not getting in trouble with boys. It was hard for Meg and me to be alone at my place. Which is why we usually went to hers.

I had a few chances to see Hildy interact with her husband. George was tall and handsome like my father, an architect with a passion for photography and car mechanics and, as it turned out, scuba and free diving. His interests meshed with my dad’s; the two men got along very well. I saw courtesy and strong family habits between Hildy and George, but I never saw physical affection or arguing. Then again, I don’t think Meg ever saw those activities between my parents. God knows I witnessed plenty of arguing. And I also saw evening affection. So there’s no telling about these things from outside the home, and sometimes there’s no telling from outside the master bedroom.

The friendship between the families faded away after Meg and I went to college. I remember visiting her once, midway through our freshman year, on the UCSD campus (I was at Cal Berkeley). Then half a century passed.

It didn’t occur to me till now, that the relationship between Meg’s family and my own may have been a concession from my mother to me. I’m realizing today that although the dads and kids got along great, Mom and Hildy were anything but fellow travelers. They had nothing in common. I’ve spent most of my adult life criticizing my mother for failing to meet my needs or see me. But now I’m wondering: were those scuba outings and meals together actually my mother’s way of trying to give my family time, an experience that then exasperated and frustrated me beyond words, some positive moments? I thought it was all fueled by Dad liking George and my brother and Lark diving but if that were so, why did those get-togethers end?

I’m thinking about this now because I just encountered Meg. I went to a reading in the neighborhood bookstore. It’s something I never do, but the author recently published a cookbook on vegan dishes with a low-carb spin. I’m a somewhat vegetarian. I eat fish and seafood, I nibble on bacon, but I never really liked meat, don’t have it in the house, don’t order it in restaurants. I’m getting older, and my fingertips tingle regularly. I’m starting to understand the neurological benefit to reducing carbohydrates in my diet. So I was interested in the book.

In the discussion session afterward, a portly gray-haired woman raised her hand. “When I was in high school,” she said, “my best friend and I used to make sandwiches out of two corn chips and a slice of raw mushroom.” She had my attention then. “I’m wondering if there’s a low-carb way to duplicate that treat.”

Was it? I peered around the woman to my left, across the little semi-circle of occupied folding chairs. “Meg?” I voiced.

The questioner whipped her head toward me. She narrowed her eyes and then opened them as she smiled. “Mel?”

We had to wait for the session to end. The author advised us to be wary of modern hybrid corn. I thought there’d be some GMO warning, but she just wanted us to know that agriculturalists have increased the fructose content in corn crops. (Our tongues already know this…corn and tomatoes are sweeter and nuts are bigger than they used to be. We all have to update our nutrition reference books). She told us to look for organic corn meal and to fry our chips in olive oil. She added that if the subject weren’t vegetarian/vegan preparation, she’d tell us to use lard or suet. I tucked that into the vault.

Meg and I headed for one another after the session broke up. We did the expected: hugged, backed away and peered into each other’s face, asserted that neither looked our age. We took our conversation next door to the little café. She ordered tea, just like when we were teenagers. My mother always gave me tea when I was ill; now I start to think I’m sick if I drink the stuff. It was too late in the day for coffee and the place didn’t serve wine, so I went with bubbly water.

All this time Meg’s been living about three miles away. She married a Jewish psychologist and raised a son who is now 33. I told her about my two short marriages to WASPs, my almost 40 year old daughter and 34 year old son. Meg had a career in landscape architecture and is now retired, tending her garden and hoping for a grandchild. I’d landed in financial services consulting, set out my own shingle and made a living, while continuing to write in my spare time.

Her parents are dead. I lost my dad a decade ago, but Mom is still going strong at 91.

“I used to want your mom for my own,” I confessed to her as we finished our drinks. “She was so gentle and understanding. And I always thought I’d thrive creatively if I had an artist mom. It wasn’t till my daughter told me she wished her father’s friend Julie was her mother, that I started seeing the subject from another perspective. I have to admit: I felt it. I thought I was a better mother than my mom had been.”

“How old was your daughter then?”

“Oh, about 8. It was shortly after I divorced her dad. He was desperate to find a new wife. Julie was a work friend of his who never consented to be his girlfriend, but I guess she wowed my kid.”

“I think there’s a little difference between wanting another mother when you’re 8 and when you’re 18.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Anyway,” Meg said through a grin, “that was around the time I thought it would be nice if my mom were more like yours.”

“Get out! I never had a clue!”

“I wasn’t as disclosive as you. And you never told me about your Hildy-love.”

“True. You wanted my mom’s qualities?”

“Oh yeah. Your mother didn’t ever compete with you, artistically. Between Mom’s pottery and Dad’s photography there wasn’t much room for creative expression in our house. And I was so jealous of the way your mother shopped for you and made appointments. I had to take on those jobs for myself when I was about 12. But mostly I loved the emotions in your family.”

“You mean the way we yelled?” One of the things I’d liked about the Mueller household was the absence of any shouting.

“It was awesome the way you guys were so Jewish, passionate, Mediterranean, whatever you want to call it. You’d flare up and then calm down. You all laughed so often.”

“I never realized…”

“That my German family was cold? Gaad: my parents didn’t disagree often, but when they did it got positively frigid around there. They’d stop speaking. I’m sure it’s why I married a Jewish guy. Total opposite.”

“And you’re still married. Apparently you did better at choosing than I did.”

“Oh come on! We’re both too old to believe that. The secret to an enduring marriage is the commitment, on both sides, to have it endure.”

“That’s kind of you.”

We talked for another half hour. I learned that her little sister Lark had never married or had kids. I told her about my brother’s loveless but enduring and companionable marriage and the two unmotivated sons it had produced. We agreed to keep in touch. We meant it; we’ve arranged to get together next week and try making corn chips.

The whole episode has made me view my mother differently. I still don’t think she’s a woman I would choose as a friend. I still assert that she was too impulsive and impatient to meet my child needs; she dressed and fed me and took me to the doctor (too often), but she gave short shrift to my insecurities and paid no attention to my insomnia or my complaints about her regular invasions of my privacy. But I’m starting to get it that she really loved me. Sure I was her only daughter and her oldest; she was stuck with me. But she really loved me. She still does. She may have done her best. If she didn’t, it wasn’t like she had counseling or sibling resources to help her.

I’m her baby. She’s a good woman, she loves me, and she’s still in my court. These are lessons it’s only taken this baby 800 months of life, to learn.