Letter to My Mother 3.22.20
March 23, 2020
5:45am
Charleston
Good Morning to you — outside it is still dark, but the birds are waking up and greeting the day.
Today is Monday for which I am thankful. I remember how much you loved Sundays when I was growing up, you said so many times. But for me, I’m always glad when Monday returns and with it the more syncopated beats to the day. I always feel a bit unmoored on a Sunday, but for you, when the workaday struggles were temporarily thrown off and you could rest, they must have been magic.
In those days, before cable and 24 hour everything and the repeal of the Blue laws, Sundays were leisurely, uncluttered days bookended by Mass at Holy Infant in the morning (which service did we attend? 8:30 or 10:00? I do remember 11:30 was considered entirely, even decadently too late) and later by Sunday supper, sometime around 4:00 or 5:00.
I can hear the muted rattle of the sliding door to the half bath downstairs now, the one you covered in nubby, green plaid fabric and orange trim. The soft plasticky click of your make-up compacts as you readied yourself for Church. A touch of Revlon here, a sweep of Max Factor there. The hiss of Aqua Net and the fine atomized cloud as you neatened up your hair, and then tied and re-tied the silk scarf. The soft scritch, scritch as you got it just so. Then the finishing touch, a spray of perfume — Charlie in the 70s, replaced by Chloé in the 80s. I know we Glovers struggled with money mightily, especially in those days, but no one would suspect, looking at you sitting in the pew at Holy Infant. I remember we always sat on the left side, always and I was secretly so thankful when we sat behind the Dohenys with their abundance of cookie cutter offspring. I would spend half the Mass trying to figure out which one was which, and trying to put them in order by age.
And then home, up the hill to #505 and the fat Sunday paper. You would change out of your Church clothes, into something more comfortable, (a kaftan in the 70s) and have little to do, except put the roast in the oven. Oh my, the smell of the house filled with the savory deliciousness of a spitting, sizzling pork roast. That to me, it is still such a Sunday smell. You would peel potatoes and slice them in half and arrange them in the pan with a sprinkle of paprika, where they would develop the coveted golden crust on the bottom. Sometimes carrots too. You always set such a beautiful table, and Sunday dinners were always eaten in the dining room. My favorite ones were when there was a guest at the table too — a friend of one of the older kids, Dick and Kay Bolen, Grandfather when he would come to stay.
Those Sundays would pass at home, no stores were open to distract us. In the warm weather Dado would fiddle with the second hand mower, then cut the lawn or spend time in the garden or in the garage, puttering about, listening to a radio he bought at tag sale. We would reconvene at 6:00 in the living room, in front of the big console you bought at an auction and watch Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and then Disney. We weren’t a 60 Minutes family, with our love of animals, it could only be Wild Kingdom and Disney for us.
A little less complicated, a little less crowded. Those were good, predictable days.
Signing off on this Sunday,
XO, V.
