Sunday, May 8, 2011

Every day is a mommy memory day

My mother used to like saying, "You can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the girl." It was one of those things that made me roll my eyes, which was one of those things that made my mother slap me. It only took one or two times before I learned to make sure my back was turned before rolling my eyes.

She liked flowers, and we always had a couple of packets of flower seeds. When my mom knew it was going to rain, she'd go for a walk around the neighborhood with seeds in her pocket and a small trowel, tucking flower seeds all over the place. We'd go to the store, and she'd tug on my hand to make me stop, while we admired her flowers. There were always flowers in the house, and my mom never felt guilty picking flowers outside of our yard, since she planted them.

Even though she never stayed in hotels, my mom always had trial sizes of hand lotion that she kept in her purse. (How did she get those?) I always wanted some, and she always said no to me, that adults use hand lotion to have skin like babies and little kids. Finally, when I was around seven, my mom was worn down and would put a tiny dot of hand cream on my hand when she used some. At first I was insulted. I wanted the same size she got! But my mom pointed out how much smaller my hands were than hers, and when I rubbed my tiny dot in, it turned out to be plenty.

I hate that I've lost all perspective of time. Did we fight about the hand lotion for weeks or months? Did I start rolling my eyes at my mom when I was six or seven? We wandered around our old neighborhood in Brooklyn today. Danielle and I were dying to knock on doors to see if our old neighbors were there, but it was Mother's Day and it seemed wrong to bother people. We showed Alex from across the street where we lived, but the truth is she doesn't remember. That kills me.

3 comments:

Nina said...

I'm so sorry Sam.

Yankee, Transferred said...

How hard. Thinking of you.

Anonymous said...

These are really wonderful memories. So sorry that remembering them is bittersweet. Glad you've been going to Brooklyn more and more! Ask Josh to bring you the little hotel lotions when he travels?