Mother and Modesty are two words I have never been able to use in the same sentence. My mom has always had a thing about showing off her body. A few weeks ago I was brazenly reminded that aging has done nothing to diminish this characteristic.
If I ever write a book about my mother the title will be: I'm Ready for my Close-up (May 1992)
The week after Thanksgiving I spent the night at my mother's. If this event doesn't seem remarkable to you then you don't know my history. I decided it was the longest period of time we had ever been alone together. I arrived at 5:30 in the evening clutching my own dinner. I knew the only food I would find at her house would be milk, yogurt, butter, orange juice, tea, and a bag of Trader Joe's Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies. I hastily stopped at Panda Express and bought a serving of chow mien and Beef and Broccoli. Not only did I crave something warm, but I needed something I could easily share if necessary.
As a child I remember my mother bragging that she needed to get her legs insured. The back of this photo says: Please note $33.00 Beauty Salon job. The Dunes, Las Vegas, August 1955.
Mom wasn't impressed with my meal. She preferred to wait to eat at the Wassailing Party at the library. I was relieved. I had escaped one of the ways my mother complicates even the simplest of tasks. There are certain things she won't do; eating out of a Styrofoam container with a plastic fork is one of them. First she would have heated up some stoneware plates in the microwave, then heated up the food in its Styrofoam container and then transferred the warm food to the warm plates. Correction---she would have hovered over me as I carried out her explicit instructions.
Mom in her Go-Go Girl outfit (Redding, California 1969)As I tentatively began eating my take-out food she chattered away about the holiday program we were going to at the library that evening. "This is how Peter and I always started The Season," she reminisced. "And I bought a beautiful new silk dress to wear." Christmas, like Easter, has never been a religious observance for my mother. It's all about the pageantry.
As she spoke, I noticed that she was wearing a loose-fitting robe. She kept fiddling with the sash around her waist. "Maybe she is going to adjust it a little so she can cover herself more discretely," I wishfully hoped. I couldn't help but recall what my brother said just a few months ago when we spent the night together at her condo. I asked him what he thought about Mom walking around in a scanty negligee. "I didn't even notice anything," he responded honestly. "I learned a long time ago to avert my eyes."
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This was as close to the water as Mom ever got. Although she never learned to swim, she also never failed to pack a swim suit when travelling. " I am very decorative around the pool" was her reason for always having a bathing suit handy. (Salt Lake City, 1958)
Suddenly Mom untied the sash once and for all, quickly slipping the entire robe off her shoulders and into her fidgeting hands. There she was, standing in front of the refrigerator wearing only her underwear. She never stopped talking about the holiday program. In a moment of self-preservation, I instinctively followed my brother's advice: I averted my eyes. I promptly became very focused on my chow mien. I frantically searched for strands of bean sprouts, shredded cabbage, or even a sliver of carrot---anything to save me from making visual contact with an eighty-year-old woman in black lace panties.
Mom enjoyed sunbathing in public. When I was younger I was often embarrassed by her habit of unhooking her bathing suit or pulling down her straps to avoid unsightly tan-lines. (Salt Lake City 1972)
I have no recollection of what the conversation was about after that moment, but finally she excused herself to "go and take a sponge bath." I groped my way to the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of cold milk. I was just settling back down into my chair at the kitchen table when she reappeared in the doorway, chattering away as usual. I made the mistake of looking up. This time even the black lace panties were gone. Mom was drying off her bare torso with a small towel. I jumped up out of my seat. "I need to go get ready!" I practically ran to the guest bathroom. My mother never paused as she continued with her one-sided conversation. I cracked the bathroom door. "I can't hear you, Mom!" I called out. "I'm getting DRESSED!" I emphasized the last word like a command.
Mom says this outfit is perfect for her visits to the spa, just a short walk down the street from her condo. (with Peter's grandson in Huntington Beach 2006)
I started singing God Bless America under my breath. At that point it was the only way I could safely say the word God without lapsing into uncontrollable swearing. I was just finishing my make-up when her voice penetrated the closed door. "Kathleen Dear, may I come in? I want to show you something."
"Just a minute, Mom," I pleaded. I squeezed an extra squirt of Colgate onto my toothbrush and jabbed it into my mouth, brushing hard. "How do I avert my eyes when I am in a well-lit bathroom surrounded by mirrors," I desperately wondered. I braced myself for a screaming-in-multiple-images-moment straight out of the classic movie The Fly.
I reluctantly opened the door. "I just want to show you this lovely slip that came with my dress." She stood in the doorway, striking a model's pose.
"Yes, it is very pretty." I forced my head to nod up and down as my mouth foamed with toothpaste. Mercifully, she was wearing the full-length slip.
Although they wore matching shoes to my wedding, Mom and her sister Marlene have little else in common. (September 1976)
When we returned from the library, Mom, who had been complaining all evening about being cold, slipped out of her dress with its plunging neckline, removed her open-toed high heels, and put the lovely slip back into her lingerie drawer. She met me in the hallway wearing only a lavender push-up bra and matching panties. She then led me around the condo on an informal tour as she showed- off her new silk flower arrangements. She paused outside the guest bedroom. It was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes averted and I was anxious to get in my own room and finally relax.
I thought this was my opportunity to say 'good night' but she was just getting warmed up. "You know, I never thought of myself as pretty," she remarked in a totally unconvincing tone. "But I told Doctor that something must be wrong because I am putting on this weight, and it is all in my stomach. From the front I look fine, but from the side I look six months pregnant!" She turned to and fro in front of me as if I was a full-length mirror. "And look at my arms!" She thrust them out vertically and then horizontally like a cheerleader. "I'm not putting on weight anywhere else. It's just in my stomach. I told Doctor that this isn't what happens in our family. This isn't how we put on weight."
My Quintessential Mom: Perfectly posed for the camera in her signature decollete dress with the hemline hiked up above the knee to reveal an ample view of her shapely legs. Maybe it's just my imagination, but it looks like a lot of eyes are being averted in that front row. (September 1976)
She paused for dramatic effect then gave me a look that told me she was seriously worried about this mysterious weight gain. I realized that I was probably one of many that she had shared her concerns with. "Ummm...I think it's normal to become more pear-shaped or apple-shaped as we age," I offered, trying to sound reassuring yet factual. "I believe this even happened to Grandma and Aunt Mayme." I was hoping that the injection of family names into the discussion would bring it back to reality. The thought of either my grandmother or her sister prancing around in brightly-colored lingerie and fretting over their geriatric body proportions made any attempt to fuss over my mother as ridiculous as was her whining. I was certain that Grandma, who died at age 87 and Aunt Mayme, who lived to be 94, were both turning over in their graves at this embarrassing display of narcissism.
My grandmother Sara (right) with her sister Mayme. They both had very practical wardrobes in their later years. (San Luis Obispo, California, about a year before Grandma died in September 1992)
Mom seemed to ignore my attempts to inject logic into our bizarre conversation. "Well, Doctor says I need a colonoscopy to see what's wrong," she stated matter-of-factly. I learned a long time ago that it was futile to argue with anything her doctor of thirty-five years recommended. We said our good-nights and I exchanged an awkward hug with my half-naked octogenarian mother. I gratefully closed the door to my own room.
When Kelley was sixteen she spent Spring break with her grandmother. One morning Mom changed her outfit to match Kelley's so they could be "twins." This is the best she could do: my mother has NEVER owned a pair of jeans. (Huntington Beach, California 2000)
Mom's grandmother Rachel Lea Saiger. She is the same age in this photo as my mom is in the one with Kelley. Obviously Mom didn't inherit her fashion style from the Saigers. (St. Louis, Missouri 1940)
As I tossed and turned on my air mattress I tried to make sense of my mom's exhibitionism. She's been like this my whole life, I told myself, so why am I still not dealing with it very well?
It seemed like forever before Mom finally stopped wandering around the house fussing over her laundry and incessantly humming. At one point I peeked down the hallway, curious to see what she was wearing. I caught a glimpse of her standing in her large bedroom closet methodically going hanger by hanger, inspecting one outfit after another. She was dressed in a very revealing nightgown. Perhaps, I reasoned, this isn't so much a case of mutton dressing like lamb as much as it's a case of Mom feeling comfortable in her own sheepskin. If only, I told myself as I finally started to fall asleep, I could just learn how to pull the wool over my own eyes!
My sister Rebecca often seemed in competition with our mother. (Visiting with Cousin Mark at my wedding, September 1976)
copyright 2008 by Kathleen Stewart Goodrich
