a day in the life

I let my mother plan this day for us. I’m here to take part in her life, not to set an outsider’s agenda.

But first things first. Before she shows up to pick me up, Mort, my host at the B&B, brings up a breakfast tray...






There is a blizzard heading for Madison today. I look outside the window of my Berkeley rooms and take note of this alternate landscape.






I ask Mort to suggest a quick walk for me before my mom comes. He says --  Go up the next street – interesting architecture, beautiful gardens. You’ll come across a middle school with an "edible school yard." Take a look at it.

I’m off. For my mom, seeing things in bloom is rather commonplace. Last night I commented on the feeling of green around me. She shrugged. Spring’s long gone, she tells me.

So I walk alone now, just for a few blocks, to take pleasure in all that greenery and of course, in the school kitchen garden, which you might know is Alice Waters'  brainchild.




the Garden Cottage b&b





























(On one side of the school yard, I find the garden, on the other side -- a boy shooting a few baskets...)





A serene and bountiful morning.


I then give in to being my mom's companion for the day.

We do what she does. Senior water aerobics. Every weekday of the year, she is in an outdoor community pool, doing water aerobics. And so I join. True, I’m hesitant. When she first tells me to bring my swimsuit, I say what a kid would say to her mom – yeah, yeah, sure... But I intend not to use it. It’s 55 degrees outdoors! The last thing a frozen Wisconsin soul wants to do is to experience outdoor cold again!

But I change my mind. I want her day to be my day. I want to listen to the banter of the seniors pushing against the pool water. The leader is playing music from the sixties. Several of the seniors know the lyrics. I know the lyrics. I’m in the pool in Berkeley, singing sixties music with area seniors who surely remember that Berkeley from that epoch. It’s all very transformative. Suddenly, California, that state that always felt so out there, feels a little less strange and distant.


We eat lunch at Slow. Delicious sandwiches, mine with an array of good veggies. Perhaps the best part is that it’s sunny and we can eat outdoors. Surely it must be in the sixties now. Berkeley in the sixties. Makes me smile.

I follow her to favorite haunts. The dollar ice cream store. A cone for a buck? Really? She speculates that it must be a brainchild of a do-gooder who believes in keeping things affordable.





More stops. This one’s for me – to cater to my idiosyncrasies. A coffee at a local café.

And then we’re back at her place. I had toyed with the idea of doing some taped conversations. I had done that with my dad a couple of years back and so I have a treasure trove of detail from his life, right there, in the files of my computer. My mom talks less in a monologue, more with spontaneous bursts of stories and opinions and I do think that I remember her words very well – they have force and vigor and that helps – and still, having it on tape would be nice...

But I don’t record. My mom isn’t happy with technology, with recordings and so I don't want to suggest it. She hasn’t the trust, or the indifference to it all. She’s not a fan of my blogging and I am careful what I put on Ocean, because I do not want to make her unhappy with me, not now, not today, not when this day is so very lovely.

We end the evening with dinner at the retirement home. She has invited her closest friends and I have to say that the meal is, for me, a wonderful set of hours. I get it. I see her with them and them with her and I understand. And, too, I understand, I think, my place in this thicket of events and relationships.





Late, late, very late for her, somewhat late for me even, I go back to the B&B. I think about all the things that I could do for my mom and all the things that I haven’t done and cannot do. I think about her supreme generosity, her take on life, the accommodations she has made. I help her “downsize” tonight. I “disencumber” her of two albums of photos. The oldest in these is of my grandmother when she was just seven (taken in 1908).





There are many reasons to feel happy tonight, there are some to feel a tad more somber. I’ll stay with the happy. I’m predisposed in that direction.


[P.S. Several commenters have noted problems with posting comments on Ocean. I removed some safeguards (even as I'll stick with moderating stuff -- just to keep things kind and gentle here). Please do let me know if this helps or if you still experience issues.]