I open an email from my writer friend, Vicki. She wants to know if I received her newsletter last week inviting me to her writing workshop.
I did not.
She also wants to know if I am still taking part in a Sunday morning circle of writer friends on Zoom.
I am.
Almost all through the pandemic a few of us have dialed in on Sunday mornings, set a timer for 30 minutes, and written. Sometimes new fresh work, like this piece I’m writing now, and sometimes revisions of longer pieces, larger projects, novels and stories that take time and never seem to finish.
When the timer goes off after an astonishingly quick 30 minutes, we stretch and roll our necks and turn our microphones on. It’s time to refresh our coffees, because now we’re ready to share what we just wrote. For me the writing circle has become a sacred part of Sunday morning. Listening to the writing of my friends, which is always surprising, ever delightful, and sometimes sad.
I hit reply, re-invite Vicki — sending her the link again — and then we get talking about the juicy stuff. Our mothers.
Both Vicki and I are looking after our old mothers. And boy, are they mothers.
It’s a different kind of work than rearing kids, or caring for dogs and cats, or plants. Those jobs are kinda rewarding. Looking after a mother is a hell of a way to live. But on the other hand, I’m grateful I have the opportunity to fact-check my biographic material with the primary source, whenever I need to.
If I have a question, I get up from my writing desk, walk down the stairs and through the kitchen, and peer in at Mom in her chair. She’s got a blue whale of a recliner with all the bells and whistles; it stretches back, leans forward, forklifts her legs, or dump-trucks her onto her feet. All she has to do is remember how to use the remote.
Remotes.
Can we talk about remotes for a minute?
Why do they make them so difficult to operate? I dare one person reading this to tell me they completely understand all the buttons and symbols on their remote.
Anyway, if Mom is awake, I approach from her blind and deaf side, hoping I don’t startle her, ask her to turn down CBC Radio One, and then pose my question. One time I asked her why she quit art school?
“To get a job!” she answered quickly.
“Why did you want a job?”
“To earn money, for, for…” she wasn’t accessing the word she was looking for, but I could tell she remembered exactly why she wanted a job.
“What did you need money for?” I probed, hoping to jog her recollection. “Did you have to pay for your wedding?”
She shook her head. “No, for married stuff,” she explained, puzzling me.
Married stuff for me was rent and food.
“I wanted to buy some stuff for…” she was still searching for that darned word.
Tentatively, I ventured, “For your honeymoon?” Ew, ew, I don’t want to even think about my parents’ honeymoon, but she became animated.
“I wanted to buy a few things that I would need after the wedding,” she said, and then veered off into a sidebar about Margaret Atwood and The Edible Woman before coming back to the topic at hand. “I wanted some Dr. Dentons.”
I had to stop her and ask what she was talking about.
“You know. You kids had them. They’re like long-johns, pajamas. I went down to Simpsons, and I had to keep going back because I couldn’t decide on the colour, but I got a red pair and a yellow pair.”
“You mean you wanted to buy stuff for your trousseau?”
“Yes! That’s the word!”
My mother wore red long-johns on her honeymoon. I keep being more and more impressed with her.
Vicki replies to my ramblings. Her mom is keeping her busy too. They don’t live together, but Vicki is over there every day.
“Do you want to swap moms for a week?” she asks. “It’ll be like a vacation. I’ll do your mom and you can do mine.”
I think of the Christmas movie my daughter and I like to watch, The Holiday, where Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz swap homes.
“I’m just kidding, of course,” Vicki says, but my mind is already ticking.
“It’s a great premise,” I type back in my reply. “Two middle-aged women looking after their old mothers swap places. Hilarity ensues. Let’s write a book together!”
Vicki agrees.
We’ve got the mustard seed of an idea. It will need a lot of nurturing to sprout and grow. I could work on it Sunday mornings.
What do you know about your parents’ honeymoon?
I want to hear about it, well, not everything. Likewise if you know what all the buttons on your remote do, smarty-pants, please enlighten us. And extra points if you know what Dr. Dentons are! Hit reply or leave a comment wherever you read this post. I’d love to hear from you.
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Love this post, Sandy! Dr Dentons for your honeymoon? How cold IS it in Canada?
Two stories about my parents’ honeymoon. They got married in 1959 a week after graduating from college and two weeks before my dad had to report to Officer Candidate School for the Marine Corps. They were a few months shy of 22. For the honeymoon they drove from New Jersey to Sea Island, Georgia (and where they now live).
On the drive, my dad was smoking and tossed the cigarette out the window. They had all the windows down as they drove and unbeknownst to him, the cigarette flew back in and landed on his crotch. He started feeling something kind of hot and decided maybe that’s how you feel on the way to your honeymoon (gak!). Then he realized he was getting burned, pulled the car over, jumped out and (as my mom tells it) “was doing a crazy dance brushing at his you know what!” She was mortified.
But she was not as mortified as he was when they pulled into the hotel in Pennsylvania where they’d spend the first night. My mother stuffed a pillow under her dress to look like she was pregnant. “I didn’t want them to know we were on our honeymoon. It would be too embarrassing to think they knew we were going to have S-E-X.”
I am sure the thought never occurred to her that the desk clerk probably labeled her a tramp who got knocked up before her wedding. I am also not clear on how long she kept up the pillow charade. But my sister and I love to laugh about that!
Ha ha ha! This made me laugh, I had forgotten about that idea but I’m still collecting material.
I don’t know much about my parents honeymoon except that they pushed the wedding from June next year, to December of 54. That got the gossips talking but surprisingly, I was born a full year later. Darn….what kind of fun is that.