My mother took in ironing. Just being born, of course I didn’t have the words for it, or any words at all, but I think I knew. I could feel it, the warmth. Not the heat from the iron, nor the steam, but the balm of service done with grace.
It wasn’t humility. She wasn’t lowering herself. She loved clothes. She needed the money. She tested the quality of the fabric between thumb and forefinger. She knew how it would behave. How to make the collar and cuffs respond, not with rigidity, but a wantful desire to frame a face, release a hand. When finished, she didn’t just exchange it for cash, she showed them how to wear it — not as a mannequin, but a woman with style unpurchased. And they knew it. That’s why they came back. They could have gone to the local dry cleaner on Broadway, but they returned to my mother, in the white house, near the end of Van Dyke Road.
I watched her years later, doing it for herself, and I could still feel the hands that cupped the back of my head, marveling at the warmth against my resting spine. My mother took in ironing, and ever returned it with grace.
I don’t think it can be forced or planned. Some people just fit. It was that way, right from the start with my mother.
It took me several years to understand that her birthday was not the same as mine. That she didn’t come to life the minute I was born. That I didn’t come to life the minute she was. Maybe there should be that day. But how would I choose? We have anniversaries for marriage. Graduation days for classmates. Even the Fourth of July for America – the 14th for France. But the exact day I don’t remember, when first my head fit into the crook of her elbow, the other hand cupping my back, when she called me by love’s name. The first day she dared to sing to me. I smiled and sang along in coos that weren’t words, and I became that tune that everyone said she couldn’t carry.
And the soundtrack of our years went faster than days. As the song says, “How do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?” Thank them for the bandages sealed with kisses. Tears wiped with hands that pointed straight to the giggle in the other side of the room. She, who loved the frosting and I the cake. It was all so easy to share. Everything.
Today is her birthday. And joyfully, I hold a piece of it for myself. And she would like that. She would like it if you bought the birthday cake from Elden’s grocery store and ate it right out of the pan, even in the parking lot. She would encourage you to get two lemon boats at the bakery, with a side of cream horn. To order the latte. Drink the wine. To celebrate, because of her. With her. Every day! To sing out loud (not with our mouth’s full) with the tune that she gave us, the song she let us all become.
