ITS AN EMERGENCY.... of calmness.
I haven't seen my mom since before Thanksgiving.
I was sick during Christmas,
Then I was filming,
then Sailor was sick with COVID,
and now, we're just... finally human again.
We had a stack of gifts for Ma,
from us and my cousin
but I know its snowy up where she is
(2 feet of snow at least...
and her road barely passable in our 4WD in SUMMER
let alone winter...)
so I ask her to meet us in the middle.
About 60 miles from us,
and 50 miles from her
is a quaint little ski-town -
a teeny dot of political-blue
in a Red State of proud white separatists,
Mormons, and mountains.
We go to a pub,
we eat hot sandwiches
and I have a cold beer
and we catch up a little.
I asked her for the visit NOW NOW NOW
because she'd sent me an odd text message.
As you may know, Rear Dreaders
my mother is in her 70s
and lives alone on 10 acres on a mountaintop
near the Canadian border
with no water, no power,
in a converted chicken coop...
... living her best pioneering dream.
She sent me a message about hearing voices,
which is weird.. because she's mostly deaf.
They were paranoid, and violent.
When *rump was president,
she was sure she was being 'watched'...
'followed'... spied on...
for being about the only liberal petunia
in the field of thorny-headed nationalists.
It's been better since 2021,... in general
but Winter is always hard for her.
Seasonal depression.
Years of chosen isolation.
A global pandemic.
Bi-polar disorder.
Just her, her old dog
and her handful of horses
and the snow falling on short days
and long, cold nights.
We text, and that helps.
Around Christmas I was going to buy her a new coat,
but she listed all the things about previous coats she has
that she hates
and then decided she doesn't like coats...
and although she needs one,
she doesn't want one.
This is how my mother operates.
So, I bought her a coat anyways.
A sub-zero coat...
with a hood, and deep pockets,
and a two-way zipper, and a dark color,
and all the things she complained
winter coats never have.
It was even on crazy 90%-off clearance,
so even if she hated it,
she'd like it because it was so cheap.
She loved it.
YAY!
When she left, though....
her truck wouldn't start.
Her truck,
which she paid more for
than her 10 acres in the woods.
It starts with cursing.
It unravels into panicking
which drowns in its own sense of regret,
self-blame, and hopelessness.
We try to troubleshoot with her.
Basic, run of the mill problems
that would cause a pre-ignition failure.
Wheel-lock?
Vapor lock?
Dislodged gear?
Brake slip?
Security tampering?
Sailor and I both think it's gotta be something simple...
like the steering wheel locked.
"No. It CAN'T be that.
This truck doesn't DO that."
She explains the only other time
this happened was a bumpy road
dislodged one of her fluid tubes,
and her radiator went dry...
and her onboard computer wouldn't let her start the car
with a dry radiator...
but... it wouldn't tell HER that..
it would only tell someone with a car code-reader doohickey.
The sun is setting...
the wet roads begin to freeze before our eyes.
She's planning a million contingencies.
Roadside assistance, a flat-bed tow,
dealership fixes, rental cars,
worrying about taking her dog on the bus
and the gas canisters in the bed of the truck.
I call her roadside assistance company, so she doesn't have to
(her hearing-aids make it tough)
she books a hotel room down the road that accepts dogs,
but its Sunday night in a remote mountain town.
The bars shut down early,
the tow companies have to dispatch from 50 miles away
but the work shortage
also means a tow-truck shortage.
Sailor and I decide to book a room, too.
Spend the night.
Wait for the tow with her.
Drive her and her dog to the dealership in the morning.
She keeps asking when we're going to leave.
"We're not, mom.
We're staying with you.
Who knows when the tow is coming?!"
She's grateful, because she says so.
She's also upset, because she says so.
She's disappointed and angry and frustrated...
damned cars, damned ice, damned dog, damned tow companies.
She's worried she's "making us" stay.
Sailor and I both laugh
and let her know it's nothing.
Not to even worry about it.
We give her hugs.
We'll be late tomorrow for work.
So what?
We have jobs that allow for that.
We also call OUR roadside assistance.
Mom disappears into the bar she is parked in front of.
She's going to use the bathroom,
but she's gone at least 20-30 minutes.
She comes out,
"I think I sold my place!!"
(we keep telling her to sell,
and moving back to town with us)
...we follow her into the bar.
Apparently on her way out,
she had started talking to a patron
who wanted to buy property
"up north".
I listen in as Mom spends 20 minutes
telling the young enthusiastic man
everything she hates about the place.
"How are the views?"
He asks.
"Oh, its fine. If you don't count the tansy.
That stuff is POISONOUS you know?!
It's EVERYWHERE up there!
I've spent 5 years pulling it up,
made me sick and everything. It's awful!"
"How close are the neighbors?"
He asks.
"Oh, you can see a couple of them from the property,
but they're crazy, ya know??
They're just CRAZY!!
The one close raises mastiffs and leaves crates of meat out for them
to just ROT! It smells AWFUL!!
It's CRAZY!!! They're crazy!!"
That's mom.
She knows how to NOT SELL things.
She's always been this way.
Always.
She complains about her favorite things,
because struggle is her version of love.
The young man thanks her for her honesty,
drinks a glass of water and leaves.
The bartend sweeps up around us,
putting up chairs.
He says we can stay a bit
since we're waiting for a tow.
3 hours after our first tow-call,
the tow arrives.
It's the one we called
from our company.
(note: AAA is awesome, folks!
Accept no substitutes!)
It's a grizzled older woman
with a badass giant dog in the cab with her.
Fuck yeah.
Grizzled old ladies are the perfectly pickled cherries
of this otherwise bland world.
She gets mom's truck started in 4 minutes.
It's the thing Sailor thought was the wrong with it...
... the same thing which was the first thing I thought of.
Wheel-lock.
Exacerbated by a tight steering column,
parking on catty-wompas on an roadside ice pile,
and panic which rules out tactile finesse.
Sailor is not one to argue,
nor is he one to go,
"Told ya so! Nyah! Nyah!"
because he is perfect in every way.
The tow-lady leaves.
We all go to the hotel.
Mom berates herself for the simple mistake.
The simple fix.
To me, this is all...
EXCELLENT NEWS!
-We spent more time with Mom.
-Her truck is FINE and needs no repairs.
-No one drove home on icy roads.
-Mom didn't drive home in the dark... with her night blindness!
-It was a pretty nice hotel, overall.
-And mom got a nice hot shower
(no water at her place, remember?).
What's the problem?
That's a good night!
Best of all possibilities!
Mom raves about the new coat,
(she won't take it off!)
and thanks us for staying
and we all go to our rooms for the night.
The next day,
we get to see her before we all split up and leave.
Mom still won't take off her coat,
AND she showered.
Excellent!
Sailor and I drove home,
we stopped by an English Bar
that is a town-away from home.
He gets fish & chips...
I get a scotch egg and a cask ale.
We play cards, and laugh.
It's a good day,
especially for a Monday.
Another Big Disaster
turned into a kitten purring in a sunbeam...
with simple acts of patience, love, and presence.
I was sick during Christmas,
Then I was filming,
then Sailor was sick with COVID,
and now, we're just... finally human again.
We had a stack of gifts for Ma,
from us and my cousin
but I know its snowy up where she is
(2 feet of snow at least...
and her road barely passable in our 4WD in SUMMER
let alone winter...)
so I ask her to meet us in the middle.
About 60 miles from us,
and 50 miles from her
is a quaint little ski-town -
a teeny dot of political-blue
in a Red State of proud white separatists,
Mormons, and mountains.
We go to a pub,
we eat hot sandwiches
and I have a cold beer
and we catch up a little.
I asked her for the visit NOW NOW NOW
because she'd sent me an odd text message.
As you may know, Rear Dreaders
my mother is in her 70s
and lives alone on 10 acres on a mountaintop
near the Canadian border
with no water, no power,
in a converted chicken coop...
... living her best pioneering dream.
She sent me a message about hearing voices,
which is weird.. because she's mostly deaf.
They were paranoid, and violent.
When *rump was president,
she was sure she was being 'watched'...
'followed'... spied on...
for being about the only liberal petunia
in the field of thorny-headed nationalists.
It's been better since 2021,... in general
but Winter is always hard for her.
Seasonal depression.
Years of chosen isolation.
A global pandemic.
Bi-polar disorder.
Just her, her old dog
and her handful of horses
and the snow falling on short days
and long, cold nights.
We text, and that helps.
Around Christmas I was going to buy her a new coat,
but she listed all the things about previous coats she has
that she hates
and then decided she doesn't like coats...
and although she needs one,
she doesn't want one.
This is how my mother operates.
So, I bought her a coat anyways.
A sub-zero coat...
with a hood, and deep pockets,
and a two-way zipper, and a dark color,
and all the things she complained
winter coats never have.
It was even on crazy 90%-off clearance,
so even if she hated it,
she'd like it because it was so cheap.
She loved it.
YAY!
When she left, though....
her truck wouldn't start.
Her truck,
which she paid more for
than her 10 acres in the woods.
It starts with cursing.
It unravels into panicking
which drowns in its own sense of regret,
self-blame, and hopelessness.
We try to troubleshoot with her.
Basic, run of the mill problems
that would cause a pre-ignition failure.
Wheel-lock?
Vapor lock?
Dislodged gear?
Brake slip?
Security tampering?
Sailor and I both think it's gotta be something simple...
like the steering wheel locked.
"No. It CAN'T be that.
This truck doesn't DO that."
She explains the only other time
this happened was a bumpy road
dislodged one of her fluid tubes,
and her radiator went dry...
and her onboard computer wouldn't let her start the car
with a dry radiator...
but... it wouldn't tell HER that..
it would only tell someone with a car code-reader doohickey.
The sun is setting...
the wet roads begin to freeze before our eyes.
She's planning a million contingencies.
Roadside assistance, a flat-bed tow,
dealership fixes, rental cars,
worrying about taking her dog on the bus
and the gas canisters in the bed of the truck.
I call her roadside assistance company, so she doesn't have to
(her hearing-aids make it tough)
she books a hotel room down the road that accepts dogs,
but its Sunday night in a remote mountain town.
The bars shut down early,
the tow companies have to dispatch from 50 miles away
but the work shortage
also means a tow-truck shortage.
Sailor and I decide to book a room, too.
Spend the night.
Wait for the tow with her.
Drive her and her dog to the dealership in the morning.
She keeps asking when we're going to leave.
"We're not, mom.
We're staying with you.
Who knows when the tow is coming?!"
She's grateful, because she says so.
She's also upset, because she says so.
She's disappointed and angry and frustrated...
damned cars, damned ice, damned dog, damned tow companies.
She's worried she's "making us" stay.
Sailor and I both laugh
and let her know it's nothing.
Not to even worry about it.
We give her hugs.
We'll be late tomorrow for work.
So what?
We have jobs that allow for that.
We also call OUR roadside assistance.
Mom disappears into the bar she is parked in front of.
She's going to use the bathroom,
but she's gone at least 20-30 minutes.
She comes out,
"I think I sold my place!!"
(we keep telling her to sell,
and moving back to town with us)
...we follow her into the bar.
Apparently on her way out,
she had started talking to a patron
who wanted to buy property
"up north".
I listen in as Mom spends 20 minutes
telling the young enthusiastic man
everything she hates about the place.
"How are the views?"
He asks.
"Oh, its fine. If you don't count the tansy.
That stuff is POISONOUS you know?!
It's EVERYWHERE up there!
I've spent 5 years pulling it up,
made me sick and everything. It's awful!"
"How close are the neighbors?"
He asks.
"Oh, you can see a couple of them from the property,
but they're crazy, ya know??
They're just CRAZY!!
The one close raises mastiffs and leaves crates of meat out for them
to just ROT! It smells AWFUL!!
It's CRAZY!!! They're crazy!!"
That's mom.
She knows how to NOT SELL things.
She's always been this way.
Always.
She complains about her favorite things,
because struggle is her version of love.
The young man thanks her for her honesty,
drinks a glass of water and leaves.
The bartend sweeps up around us,
putting up chairs.
He says we can stay a bit
since we're waiting for a tow.
3 hours after our first tow-call,
the tow arrives.
It's the one we called
from our company.
(note: AAA is awesome, folks!
Accept no substitutes!)
It's a grizzled older woman
with a badass giant dog in the cab with her.
Fuck yeah.
Grizzled old ladies are the perfectly pickled cherries
of this otherwise bland world.
She gets mom's truck started in 4 minutes.
It's the thing Sailor thought was the wrong with it...
... the same thing which was the first thing I thought of.
Wheel-lock.
Exacerbated by a tight steering column,
parking on catty-wompas on an roadside ice pile,
and panic which rules out tactile finesse.
Sailor is not one to argue,
nor is he one to go,
"Told ya so! Nyah! Nyah!"
because he is perfect in every way.
The tow-lady leaves.
We all go to the hotel.
Mom berates herself for the simple mistake.
The simple fix.
To me, this is all...
EXCELLENT NEWS!
-We spent more time with Mom.
-Her truck is FINE and needs no repairs.
-No one drove home on icy roads.
-Mom didn't drive home in the dark... with her night blindness!
-It was a pretty nice hotel, overall.
-And mom got a nice hot shower
(no water at her place, remember?).
What's the problem?
That's a good night!
Best of all possibilities!
Mom raves about the new coat,
(she won't take it off!)
and thanks us for staying
and we all go to our rooms for the night.
The next day,
we get to see her before we all split up and leave.
Mom still won't take off her coat,
AND she showered.
Excellent!
Sailor and I drove home,
we stopped by an English Bar
that is a town-away from home.
He gets fish & chips...
I get a scotch egg and a cask ale.
We play cards, and laugh.
It's a good day,
especially for a Monday.
Another Big Disaster
turned into a kitten purring in a sunbeam...
with simple acts of patience, love, and presence.