We used to tease my mother about her cooking, that she would get frostbite from purchasing most of our dinners in the frozen food section of the store. Heck, until I was an adult I didn't know you could make spaghetti without cans or boxes.
But she pulled off some good meals. Her Sunday pot roast with potatoes and carrots? Oh so good. Rich in taste and comfort-food satisfaction. Her pork chops on the other hand? They could have been used as food for the space program, they were so devoid of moisture. Throw one in a baggy and you had a "just add water" meal.
She was creative, and I've followed in those footsteps. Again, and maybe I was just a particularly stupid kid, it didn't occur to me that people bought new couches. I was always fascinated to see the new slipcovers my mother would make for our furniture when she created a new look for the living room.
She loved to write, so do I.
There are similarities between us, something I do think about around Mother's Day. As the years pass, I'm more easily able to see those and not just the emotional unavailability, or the hot temper, or the crazy-making responses to life. I'm becoming more able to put all the hurtful letters she'd sent into their own place in my brain, and the memories of her laughing into another. I'm learning to hold the pleasant days my family spent with her as precious hand-me-downs, while boxing up her anger and accusations into their own separate closet. It's a process.
One I'm working on.
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