1 Memory Ln

I could write today about the indignity that was my 4th of July, about how I sweated and strained my way through the neighborhood pulling my 5 year old son up hills on his bike, yelling hoarsely at him to pedal while my neighbors lounged on the curb and enjoyed.  About how my skirt didn't fit quite exactly right, or how I nearly biffed in front of the entire breakfast line when a gawking teenaged boy wouldn't get out of my way.

But instead I think I will begin our trip down- you called it- Memory Lane.  Our first house is small, really just a single blue room with a vintage velvet couch and a simple view of yellow-green meadows.  In it is my first "boyfriend," and clinging to the outside of the roof, alternately stroking its shingles and attempting to claw it to pieces, my mother.

I put "boyfriend" in quotes because really he fits only a loose description of the word.  He was a tall and gawkish junior that year, a glamorous year older than me and clearly the studious, responsible, "nice" boy every mother wants for her daughter.  Until we were placed in the same choir that year, the only thing I'd known about him was that in elementary school (when I would have NEVER talked to him) he'd been given the part in the school play that I had spent the semester understudying for, at the very last minute.  Jason Levitis had actually been sick closing night- I couldn't believe it!  But the music teacher (curse you, Mrs. Ramsey!) gave my part to Darren Turner in the final hour.  Luckily, I never held this against Darren himself, as it would have surely put an unfair damper on our otherwise beautiful relationship.

I remember the first time he called me, the first time I sensed that he "liked me;" the first time anyone had ever liked me.  I spent hours daydreaming about him on my bed, listening to the soundtrack to The Little Mermaid, rewinding the tape to replay "Kiss the Girl" as if on an endless loop of passion...  Ah, those wonderful days, culminating in our first memorable date in my living room on a Monday afternoon watching none other than The Little Mermaid itself, out on video just that week!

He may have kissed me afterwards; I don't remember.  I do remember him kissing me on a later date (perhaps our 4th out of 5) on the couch in the music room; five little consecutive kisses, like a bird pecking hesitantly with its sharp little beak.  That was the time I looked at the back of his thigh and was instantly and terminally repulsed by him, much as I tried to ignore it for another week.  It was also the day my mother excitedly ordered me to make him a sandwich; I made a ham and cheese sandwich in my 16-year old way, lettuce and tomato and mayo, pressing down with my left hand on either side of the knife as I cut it into rectangles.

"You smushed it!" my mother shrieked at me.  Sure enough, there were the impressions of my fingers on the bread.  I didn't see the problem, and I knew he certainly wouldn't either...  The sandwich continued on to its intended recipient.

A few days later, my mother again started worrying at me to make him brownies.  I called him to see if he liked brownies, he said no, and proceeded to "break up" with me.  I took this in stride (I'd seen the leg, after all) and cheerfully dismounted.  I reported to my mother that the brownies wouldn't be necessary after all; Darren and I were no longer dating.

"It's because of the sandwich!!" she wailed.  "You smushed the sandwich and he doesn't like you anymore!"

Then she turned on me in accusation.  "YOU drove him away!" and so on and so forth.

Looking back on this 18 years later (my mother has no memory of this, by the way,) I can only think of one way to understand this obviously... amusing behavior.  My mother started dating my father at 16.  She was obviously living my life with me through the framework of her own.  When Darren broke up with me after our deep and meaningful 3-5 weeks of "dating," she was losing her future son-in-law.  Little could she imagine what a different route from hers my life would take.  Here I am at 34, divorced, a single mother of two, having dated and broken up with more guys than she has years.  It's a good thing she managed to get over her bizarre emotional attachments to my boyfriends, or at this point she would be raving and blubbering hysterically in a mental institution instead of upstairs in her room.  

Just kidding.  That was mean.  She's a good lady.  :-D