My little sister Karin called Friday morning. I didn’t recognize her voice at first so I wondered why some chick’s opening line was “Are you at your computer?” especially since it’s not like I’m always in front of my computer. So I couldn’t look up Jay’s Treaty on the Wikipedia for her as she did a fast-trot across campus to the testing center.
She mentioned something about the XYZ affair, early 1800s, John Jay, and things started ringing a bell, but I was going seventy on the freeway so it really wasn’t an optimal time for historical conjecture.
I got to Mama’s house (I don’t ever call my mother “mama” but right now I wish I did) finally and we started bumbling our way through canning my forty pounds of $1.29/pound chicken from Macey’s. Mama can sew anything. Anything. But she’d never canned meat before, so we were both studying the directions and calling her friend who does it all the time.
I asked if she’d decided what she’ll study in school when she goes back in January. Mama has twenty-three college credits from thirty years ago, and now that my youngest brother Ryan is the fifth and last of us to trot across campus to the testing center, Mama is going back.
She’s scared. Even though she can do anything, fix anything, build a family, and bring the nurture so the Giving Tree looks like a selfish putz, Mama’s anxious about going back to school.
I am tickled for her. Maybe even more excited than when my Sally started school for the first time.
Oh, the places you’ll go! (Mama!)
We laughed over Karin’s frantic phone call (Mama got one too and was also in the car at the time. Karin got lucky with our sister, Marcy, who it’s also not like she’s always in front of her computer). Later, as my fingers turned numb from half-frozen raw chicken and my skin cracked from repeated hand-washings, Karin called again and told Mama she was jealous that we were canning stuff and that when she’d called Marcy for last-minute cramming she was reading a book while grinding wheat.
Mama says Karin, who has three more semesters of school, is feeling the pull of the domestic. (Her boyfriend returns from a two-year mission for our church in a couple of weeks). I’ve already told Karin she has to graduate before having kids — even though if Mama had done that I probably wouldn’t be here.
So what are you going to study, Mama, I asked? And Mama said she’s been rethinking her plan to do nursing. Now she’s probably going to study something in the humanities, maybe everything in the humanities, because she’s been doing practical things all her life.
Of course I think back to college and wish I’d been more practical. It’s nice to know where to place a comma and that Aphra Behn was a foremother of the modern romance novel, but sometimes I wish I’d picked up some tax-return fundamentals along the way.
But for Mama? I hope she absolutely revels in the impractical, now that her season has changed.
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How awesome that your mom is going back to school. My grandma did that; she studied German. I would love to see my mom go to school. She never went to college and I think she would love it.
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You might suggest to Mama that she look into the Phys Ed Department. Isn’t that where they teach you how to be a cheerleader? All those barely post-adolescent girls need some good leadership, and Lord knows she has the experience keeping beautiful, headstrong young daughters in line.
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Funny you should advise against the practical–all these years, I’ve wished I had chosen the practical instead of History, for goodness sakes! Although I freely admit that I felt like I had come home when I took “Historiography” after cancelling my Home Ec. major, History does not put food on the table when Hubby is out of work. But to be honest, if I had finished my teaching certificate, I would have felt compelled to go to work myself.
Even so, there should be room in her program for your mom to get a good dose of learning-for-the-joy-of-learning, no matter what she ultimately chooses. By the way, one friend of mine went back to school in her 50′s, became a travel agent(!?!), but then caught the learning bug and got a master’s degree in English as a Second Language, and in May received her PhD in Arabic, no less! And she’s 62! You’re right to say “Oh, the places you’ll go!”
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Oh man! You’ve got to tell me next time there is a sale on chicken that good! I can’t imagine being close to the next season of my life. And I wish I felt the domestic pull….canning chicken does not sound fun to me. But go you!!
And I hope your girls get better soon, it’s just not the same without them….
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Okay…..I just gotta inquire: canned chicken? seriously? why? This would be in contrast to freezing it?
And #2….does your mama approve of you talking on the phone while driving? tsk tsk :} Not safe.
But most cool about mama goes to school. My mother, age 76, stopped her senior year of college and I think always has that vague feeling of wishing she could have finished and gotten that old degree. So kudos to your mom–it is a brave thing1
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Jane Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Yep, instead of freezing, which a) I only have a small freezer, and b) what if the electricity goes out? It took a long time, but I think now that we’ve done the first time, it’ll get a lot smoother. Now I’ve got enough chicken cooked and parceled out for a year. For cheap!
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Good luck to your mom. I hope she enjoys herself. I am going back to school in the next couple years and am trying to decide what I want to do. I’m leaning toward impractical myself.
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