Blueprints

"Like the dead-seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say." - Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

I've spent most of my adult life convincing myself I'm nothing like my mother.

My mother and father met in a laundromat. He had purchased some land, thinking his wife at the time would want to move to the country with him. As his dream came closer, his soon-to-be ex-wife moved farther away from him. He lived on a beautiful piece of land while he built his house: a floor topped with a wood framework at first, the bare bone beginning of his home. My mom moved into the start of a dream - a house so new she could see the moon straight through the skinned walls and ceiling when she fell asleep at night. My mother wanted land, wanted children, and a garden, and so did my father. They endured freezing cold nights with nothing but the structure of a house - no insulation - between them and the stars.

I spent my childhood watching them build our home. Solar power. Indoor plumbing. A blue tile floor. Carpet. A telephone. A color television with a VCR player. Two years of adding on new bedrooms. A new porch to replace the tiny one perched over the front door. Even today, a new dining room, a new kitchen. Molding their dream, solidifying their vision for themselves. Refusing to let snow and winter and mud and gas wells drive them out.

We forgive our men, my mother and I, for thinking that a home is simply wood and nails, paint and bricks, heat and water. We forgive them because we have food and shelter and laundry detergent and money for shoes and new furniture. We forgive them for not noticing our contribution to building our homes.

Our contributions are very real. Ask any woman if what she does for her family can be packaged, reproduced, sold, described in color and shape, texture and weight. She will say no. If you say, well then, your contributions are nebulous, indescribable, and therefore invalid, you would be wrong.

We keep in touch with our men's families. We send cards, letters, answer the phone when their mothers call.
We understand when our men need their space, and leave them alone.
We care for our children's emotional needs. We are the soft place to fall for our children, and this, out of all our contributions, is the most likely to be overlooked, minimized.
We plan time with our men. We insist that we get away from work and responsibility for a mental rest. We make the hotel reservations, arrange for the care of pets and kids, and check in with our men to make sure they are having a good time.
We do the chicken soup, tissue, poor baby, thermometer things when our men are sick.

We eke out time for ourselves when we can.

My mother moved into a shell - not a house, not a home, a shell - and has spent the last thirty-three years making it a home. She had the wood and the walls but where was the warmth? Where was the insulation that kept out the cold?

We believe in our dreams, we believe in our men, and so we are willing to forgive our men for forgetting the warmth, for thinking the structure of a house is enough.

I've spent most of my adult life convincing myself I'm nothing like my mother.