WanderTime: Happy Birthday to Us

Mom and Me, 1970s
The Holly Hobbie Years

It’s our birthday month—Mom and me. Two weeks apart to the day.

October is a grand month for a birthday. Falling leaves. Sweater weather. Apple pie. Sunflowers. A return to inside by the fire. Holiday glow on the horizon (before the to-do lists).

This year, lots will happen in October. A weekend in NYC to watch our oldest perform. Our youngest coming home from college in Texas for a jolt of fall. Wordsmithing with cups of tea nearby. Cozy dinners with friends. Presents! A trip to see my mom.

She—the other October birthday gal—would like my assistance picking out carpet. I’m looking forward to the visit but not so much the carpet part.

Me helping her to decide on a soft landing that is a) practical and b) pleasing to her, will go quite predictably, and only so well. Our brains work differently, maybe because while we share a birthday month, we are different zodiac signs.

She’ll start by giving me all the criteria in her head for what carpet won’t work and why. I will then become confused because what she describes will strike me as contradictory.

Then I’ll say something very Libra-like: which one speaks to you? And she’ll say something very Scorpio-like: the Berber because it’s easy to clean, but then again, the medium pile is so soft. You think I should get the Berber, don’t you?

My mother assumes that I have the correct answer always—a trait that she assigned to me at birth. “Convenient,” I used to think. Now I mostly marvel at the unconventional way she instilled confidence in me.

I will not, however, think she should get the Berber, because Berber is boring. I’ll suggest the one with the warm mixed hues that remind me of sand because I am craving a beach house and never paid attention to which one was the medium pile in the first place.

This process will go on and on, and likely end in explosions of laughter or possibly tears followed by a meal where my mother will ultimately choose which carpet she will buy. I will nod with confident approval even though in truth, by then I will have absolutely no opinion.

We’ll feel self-satisfied and generally warm about each other and the chosen carpet. Then over apple pie we’ll retell our favorite stories. These stories will remind us of songs that kept us warm when the Volkswagen van had no heat and how snowy the world used to be.

Then, the next day on my six-hour drive home, I’ll get a call where she’ll tell me she’s changed her mind about which carpet she’s buying. I’ll listen and think about reminding her how she arrived at the first decision, then decide better of it. It’s only carpet after all.

Two months later, almost to the day, I’ll traipse back to her house with my family for the holidays and see the carpet now installed and think how nice it—whichever carpet she goes with—looks.

Mom will remind everyone to take their shoes off many, many times. And I’ll do as I’m told, until I catch my sister’s conspiratorial eye, then I’ll stomp on the new carpet with my shoes on (don’t worry, they’ll be clean) just to make a point.

And what will that point be?

Happy birthday—to us. Love you, Mom.