Teresa M's Open Salon Blog

Yup - Got 'er Done!

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:06:07 -0400

Yup – Got ‘er Done!

“Yup” is most often the laconic response I receive (usually in the form of a text message) from Joe to my variety of queries in numerous formats. I want details whereas Joe likes to operate in brief and sufficient terms. There is a yin and yang to my mother/son relationship that differs greatly from my mother/daughter relationships. There are thesis papers to be written about that but I am not going to go there now. This is about celebrating Joe’s accomplishment and wishing well for his future. I stand at the Mother Ship watching him leave this orbit path.

Joe is all about the road less traveled. He is about using the bargaining chip until it is worn to a nub. Deadlines and due dates are for those who are going to remember to meet them. “No” has never been an acceptable answer. His perception can be so searing it burns a hole through rock. Joe has taught me how to pray.

When Joe was four years old, he wanted me to let him climb on top of the refrigerator. He was convinced that if he could just be allowed up to that perch he could fly from there. No amount of admonition about broken bones, landing on his head and knocking himself unconscious or , worse case scenario, unbalancing the refrigerator to the point that it would topple over him and crush him to death, would dissuade him from his belief and desire. We had the conversation many times.

One evening, I was folding a load of laundry in my bedroom when I heard a quiet plea from a distant space.

“Mom?”

“What, son?”

“Could you come out here?”

“I’m busy, Joe. What do you need?”

“Mom! Please! Just come out here! Please!”

I knew that voice. The last time I had responded to it, I found him standing in the basement summoning every ounce of strength he could muster into his four year old biceps to keep a TV set from crushing his skull. Tonight I followed the voice to the kitchen. There, on top of the refrigerator, squatting like a big fat toad, was my son Joe. He wore a look of semi-terror that said: I know you told me not to climb up here and I did anyway and I’m in a world of shit for that but could you please just not make a big deal out of this and get me down now? (Yes, Joe is capable of saying all that with one facial expression.)

I stood bemused for a moment and then I asked:

“What are you doing up there, son?”

“I don’t know”, came the plaintive response, “I just magicked myself up here!”

Well, fourteen years and countless escapades and discussions later, it is more likely to be me summoning him to help with some physical task beyond my capability and what I want to say today is this:

Joseph Meade Mahoney – may you always know your magic!

First day of kindergarten

Oscars 2010

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:03:25 -0500

The Oscars 2010

It was a simpler celebration this year. We didn’t get the strawberries dipped, but we had chocolate fondue. We ordered pizzas, but we also had shrimp. The drink glasses didn’t have gold bows tied on the stems, but the fruit juice sparkled. Shannon was in Stamford; Peggy Bull and Keri Bull were sick; but Katie and I, and Debra, Megan and Thea, put on our makeup and gowns and later de-gowned to pajamas. We feasted and lounged and watched the whole show. Another Oscar night was duly observed.

The young women - short view.

The seasoned women - short view.

The young women - long view.

The seeasoned women - long view.

Mother and Daughter (Debra and Megan) - vintage 1970's.

Mother and Daughter (me and Katie) - vintage current.

Pretty hair.

Pretty make-up.

Pretty face.

Missing and missed:

Daughter Shannon

Leigh, Peggy and Keri Bull

She Is Here!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:02:02 -0500

“There is an angle in our family,” were the words of my husband, who flew to meet her only hours after her presence commenced in this life. This first grandchild has forever changed all of our long-held titles: Mom and Dad to Grandma and Grandpa; and sister, sister-in-law, brother, brother-in-law to aunts and uncle. Indeed we have been promoted. tal!"]

Upon receiving the message in the wee hours this morning that labor had begun and my daughter-in-law and stepson were enroute to the hospital, I began reciting Hail Mary’s as I rummaged for candles to light and cleared spaces for them to reside – you cannot have a sacred space in the middle of a pile of tax work (or maybe you should for a better outcome).

When I went into labor with our own firstborn, nearly 24 years ago, we called my mother-in-law before leaving for the hospital in those pre-cell phone days when calling, let alone texting, as we drove was a futuristic concept. My mother-in-law responded by saying that she would go to the church, light a votive and say some prayers. I was comforted by that. I thought it was lovely. I’m sure that her Irish Catholic sensibilities were rooted in something that existed long before the tiny isle converted. Today my friend Peggy Bull responded to my text that labor was underway with the reassurance that she would light a candle and say prayers. Continuous love poured in with texts from my sisters and friends. As I lit a pillar candle in the middle of the living room, then placed a taper in the east direction on the sun porch and finished with a trio of tea lites on the mantle to summon the three sisters of destiny,

I felt bathed in the softness of spirit. “ It’s all about love”, my Dad once told me from the other side. I perked a pot of coffee and drank from the china cup and saucer he used in his last days here. There is a children’s book about “on the day you were born”. It tells of how the awareness of the moment resonates in every being in every corner of the kingdom on earth from the sea turtles to the arctic terns. I felt this sense of the “talking wires” sending the buzz around the world. I’ve often reflected how in times of birth and times of death, when the stuff of life comes to a halt for those most entwined, the rest of the world goes maddeningly on while you are paused in the ordinarily profound. Today in the midst of my pause for Kiera Ann, I was electrified by a harbinger of good things to come. There is a different movement deep in my being that is a simmering cauldron of things like: furniture sold on Craig’s List being carried out the door, a change in financial habits, a welcoming of new healing in my physical body, a willingness to seek out new perspectives, the movement of my son’s adolescence into adulthood and my daughters’ young adulthood into adult lives and livelihoods, my husband’s decision Monday to fly to New York for the birth in spite of the fact he is just two weeks into recovery from knee replacement surgery which was affirmed and complimented by the fact that he was able to purchase a cheap ticket just hours before the faires went through the roof. So many odd little things are adding up to a belief that things are going to be more than okay along with an overall sense that some long broken things are going to be fixed. The affirmation of all that on this day of Kiera Ann’s birth is that: for weeks now – since before Christmas – I could not find heart to write any blog posts. Then last weekend when the first inspiration in a long time came to me, I posted it - only to find that my blogsite had been infected with a virus for weeks. I have been ditzing around for days trying to straighten it out, feeling clumsy and inept and fearing I would have to start from scratch and lose all my posts, but last night Kiera and I had a secret conversation and I knew that Kiera’s early arrival today signaled that we understood each other. I started writing this post with some sense that my blogsite would heal enough to share it. Before I was through writing the piece, my webhost security was able to clear the virus. My website is back and better than before with updated software. That’s because there is an angel in my life.

Baby Makes 3Brian(new Daddy) Hawk(new Grandpa) Shannon(new aunt) Kiera(newbaby)Father and Son momentGrandpa's Girl

My baby girl holding her niece.

Grandma T-T

Long Anticipated Demise

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:02:24 -0500

Godspeed and Safe Sailing

Our pink toilet has tanked.

Listing to the starboard,

It sits in a snow bank.

Are we sad to see it go?

Oh no.

Daddy's Girl II

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:02:45 -0500

When I uploaded my current puny little “Daddy’s Girl” post – the first one in some time – and I saw all the titles with Valentine in them, I realized I was a little out of step – not that there is a right or wrong topic, I know, but I just felt a bit behind the news of the day, if you will. Shortly thereafter, I recalled a story that would have been perfect to include and very in tune with the holiday. I share it now. It is a story my Mom has liked to tell for as long as I can remember.

Being the firstborn of eleven, I enjoyed some substantial quality alone time with my parents for the first twenty months of my life. My mother taught me colors and shapes and numbers while we waited on the porch stoop for my Dad to come home from work each day. My Dad was a mason, a bricklayer. He worked with heavy block and concrete and often came home covered in concrete dust. He liked a good soak in the tub at the end of his day, besides which we didn’t have a shower. As a toddler, I would regularly go in the bathroom and chat with my Dad while he soaked and when he dried off. In February of my second year, my mother had been spending a lot of time with me cutting out heart shapes and teaching me about “Valentines”. Apparently after one of our father/daughter tubside chats, I came out into the kitchen and reported to my mother, in that high-pitched voice that toddlers have, that “Daddy has a very nice Valentine!”

As to exactly which angle of which part of his anatomy I was astutely observing, well, that remains pretty much up for grabs, so to speak.