These days

 With a due date next month, I have been getting ready for the blessed event and haven't had much time for writing, and doubtless will have even less after, but I will continue to post from time to time as stray thoughts insist on being committed to the page.

I can't risk having my child way out in the boonies, so we've rented a house (and car, too) almost next door to the hospital and I am settled in there with el jefe, my kids and my mother. I'm kind of nervous, of course, there are so many things to worry about, but I've gone through this before and like all difficult things once it's over you forget about it.  I'll be glad to be finished with the pregnancy and have another mini-me to enjoy.  So I'm looking past today and tomorrow towards the days afterward, so to speak.

We flew out from the ranch with dad piloting and Jeff co-piloting, picking up some familiarization with the Beech.  I sat in the back with my mother and the kids. It was nice to be a passenger and have no responsibilities.   I didn't even have to worry about supervising the house apes as mom did that, though they were quite well behaved.

I'm glad my parents are here to enjoy their grandchildren.  It's always a pleasure to see how they interact with them. They are much freer, if that's the right word, with them than they were with me or my brothers.  I think that's because the responsibility of training and disciplining them, civilizing them, is my and my husband's responsibility, not theirs.  So they can just have fun with them.

Noodling around in some old boxes I found more stuff from my mother's trip to the Soviet Union back in the early 1970s.  This is an unopened package of Russian cigarettes more than a half-century old. I asked my mother where she got it and how much it cost. She said she thought she had bought it in Moscow but she couldn't be sure and she had no idea how much she had paid for it, but she thought just a few kopecks.

She did remember that she was surprised by the number of churches she saw in the Soviet Union. She had been under the impression that religion was suppressed under the communists, but her eyes seemed to tell her it was not so.  For all she knew, however, the churches had been repurposed as they say nowadays and were used for something other than religious services.  But then they still had crosses. I asked her why she didn't take a peek inside and she said that she was too timid.  She was afraid of getting into trouble if she was too nosy about things. After all, the Cold War was still going strong even if she was there during the brief Nixon détente.

One day my mom and I talked about the music we liked as teens and she remembered the sensation the Beatles made and how much she liked their early songs that seemed full of energy and sincerity.  She always wanted to see them in concert but never had the chance.  She was mentioning her favorite songs of theirs when she suddenly stopped and grew quiet, looked out the window.

"Mom?"

"Oh, I was just thinking that it's been sixty years since I first heard the Beatles. Sixty years.  How can that be?  How can that possibly be?  I can remember those days just as if they were yesterday, my friends, the things we did, all the days that would never end, we'd always be that young but, you know, we didn't think we were young. We just were."

She looked at her hands.  "And now....  I look at my hands and they are the hands of an old woman.  How can that be?  What happened?  Where did I go -- the real me that's a teenager?  When did I get old?  I didn't notice the time passing.  And now I'm old."

"Mom...."

"Oh, it's all right, child.  I'm just having a moment.  Don't pay attention to me.  But you pay attention to you.  Don't let your time go by without noticing it."

I started to get up to give her a hug, but she said, "No, no.  You sit.  I'm fine.  Really.  I'm just...well, it doesn't matter."

"So," she said after a moment, "I think I remember the music you liked, but tell me what was your favorite song in those days?"

I thought for a moment, drifting back, sorting through my mental music albums. "Well, I think the song that most impacted me at so many levels, and, thinking on it, one that sort of foretold a big part of my life and the direction it took was Faith Hill's 'There You'll Be.'"

"I remember you liked Faith Hill a lot. You liked a lot of what I guess they called new country or something like that."

"And also the big band revival, neo-swing, Brian Setzer and so on. I got into it just as it was dying out. I think it reminded me of the music of grandma's day."

"Yes, I remember when you found all those old records, 78s in albums, I think when you were eight or nine.  Eight, yes, eight. I remember you were crazy about 'Skater's Waltz.' and danced around the room to it. Do you remember that?"

"Oh, yes!  I'd forgotten.  But you remembered."

"I remember a lot, Wanda.  You were my baby girl.  Everything you thought or did was important to me. It still is.  I was in labor for four hours with you.  I was afraid I was going to lose you."

She fell silent, looking out the window.  I was silent, too, thinking about my baby in my womb now.