Friday, February 22, 2002
So, my mother is coming to visit me on Tuesday -- and yes, I am looking forward to it. For one thing, it means that I get real food, from an actual restaurant. To a poor college student, that's a very sacred thing -- well worth enduring a day of Mom. But I really do love my mother -- she's provided me a lifetime of ceaseless entertainment. Sometimes unwittingly, of course.
Normally, it is me who does the commuting in order to visit my family in our not-quite-hometown of Tomball, Texas. Mom likes to see me whenever possible; I was the first-born, and thus the first to be packed off to college, and it seems I am sorely missed. It's my personal belief that I am most assuredly the Good Child, especially considering that my mother still bursts into tears whenever I depart from my weekend visits. However, Mom usually comes to visit me here in Austin when she gets too "burned out" with the daily pressures of coffee shop ownership. Having worked as a barista for my mother for over two years, I know how she feels.
Mom last came to Austin in October -- a visit that is especially memorable in my mind, because it not only provided me with my mother's hilarious first-time reactions to things like the the size of my dorm room and the quality of the corner kiosk coffee, but also because it contained what would become the very first in a series of humorous conversations that I have since shared with several of my friends, much to their apparent delight. And now, I bring you, the one, the only, the original...
Conversations With Mom
As cribbed from on Mellie's blog!
Now, granted, this is most likely the only of my Conversations With Mom series that will ever be published on the blog -- the remainder of them generally contain inside jokes and personal comments that I would NEVER feel comfortable posting on the web for just Anyone (with a capital "A", no less) to see. However, I can happily post the original Conversation -- and hope that you all enjoy my mother's quirks as much as I do.
It had been an enjoyable day -- so far. My mother, feeling rather stressed from work and the rest of my family, had finally come to Austin for the first time since I had moved to go to college, and there were plenty of things she wanted to see and do. After taking a brief tour of the campus -- including a stop at my newly-cleaned dorm, where she gawked and marveled at the miniscule size of it all, and wished futilely for me to come home -- and eating lunch, we took off for a short shopping trip at the Highland Mall, traveling down Guadalupe Street (affectionately known as "The Drag", which embodies everything that is sacred in a college town -- bookstores, coffee shops, cheap greasy restaurants, and bars).
My mother is very supportive of my choice of Studio Art as my major; indeed, she is one of the only people in my family who can actually carry on some semblance of an art conversation with me, and I enjoy it immensely. I was making a point about why I dislike Jackson Pollock, and as we pulled to a stop at the red light, carefully avoiding eye contact with the numerous “Drag rats” sitting in squalor and black leather on the corner, my mother turned to me, and said, “You know, Teri, I’d really like you to draw me something in your art class. Something abstract, maybe, with coffee mugs, so I can put it in the shop.”
I rolled my eyes, appearing casual; but my mind was already jumping ahead. I knew where this conversation was headed. “It’s not like I have a choice about what I get to draw, Mom,” I said.
“Oh,” she replied simply. There was a pause, and I knew that the dawning realization had hit her. “Wait,” she said, caution and comprehension creeping into her tone, “you don’t have to draw… naked people, do you?”
I paused, silent for a moment. She glanced at me expectantly, looking uncertain. "Well, yeah, what did you expect?" I finally said.
"WHAT?!?!"
"Mom! Watch the road!"
She swerved back into the correct lane, and looked at me, a stricken, horrified expression plastered over her face. "Oh. My. God. You can't be serious."
I leaned my forehead into my hands, and sighed. "Mom, it's not a big deal. I mean, it's just a human figure."
"JUST a human figure?! A naked human figure!"
I shrugged. "You get to be really objective about it all, you know. It's about shape, and form, and movement."
She was not convinced. "Objective?! You expect me to be objective? You've lost your innocence!"
Now, that was going too far. I pride myself on my supreme purity -- I mean, I'm so innocent, it's pathetic. "Mom. I am the World's Most Innocent College Student. How can you say that? It's just ART."
Mom sniffed; I think she might have gone misty-eyed, but I couldn't be entirely sure, though I was sure about the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I NEVER wanted you to see a naked man until you were MARRIED," she said vehemently.
I collapsed into giggles -- subsequently ruining what I had hoped was a decent impression of Mature Artsy Student. “Oops,” I said, laughing. “Too late.”
Of course, Mom has now reconciled herself to the fact that I have to draw “naked people”, as she so accurately put it, and I believe she’s more comfortable with the idea – especially since I explained to her that the majority of our models are female, anyway. Although she doesn’t ask me to draw things for display in the coffee shop anymore. Not that I blame her. Coffee shops may have artsy associations, but my Mom has to draw the line somewhere…
| 12:48 AM |
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