You Gotta Hold the Frame Pt 2

Quick recap: a tale of good intentions and matriarchal vengeance, or what it was like taking my mom for an evening out.

Look, Dirty Dancing on stage? Did it need to be done? If you’re not a fan of the movie, then probably not. If you’ve seen the movie anywhere as often as I have in my life, then yes, it absolutely works for you. Here’s the deal, every memorable line, every particular dance move to a particular part of a particular song, it’s all there. With a few extras I’m sure as much to stretch the time a bit as to make up for songs the woman behind the movie wasn’t able to get then that she could now. And they even figured out a cool bit of stage magic to handle the part where Baby learns the lift in the field and then water. I was transported. I'm also weird, so there's that.

With the arrival of intermission, my mom wanted to leave. I had already realized at the very least we were going to miss the ending so we could get a little extra time down those steps before the crowds started to leave. So much for the time of my life. But Mom threw a curveball as only she can. “There’s more?” she asked as folks filed past to find bathrooms, drinks or (unbeknownst to me at the time) merchandise. Yes, Mom. Just the second half. Just the most iconic scene of the damn movie you’ve recently blocked out. “Oh.”

She didn’t want to leave while the show was still going on, because it would be dark. She was ready to leave now. Unless I was having a good time. Was I having a good time? She’d hate to ruin my night. About halfway through intermission, she decided to stay and we’d wait to leave until after our section cleared out. Unless she changed her mind for any reason later. A kid came back to her seat by us clutching a Johnny Castle teddy bear. That’s when I realized there were souvenirs. Damn and blast.

OH-EM-GEE

That's when the paramedics showed up, climbing the stairs to the nosebleed seats. One of the older ladies from our earlier stair convoy was in some kind of distress. When the paramedics walked her down a few minutes later, she told them she felt fine. Not really sure what happened, but my mom watched the whole thing like a hawk. I sat back in my own seat thinking it was a win for the evening that the paramedics were there and it wasn’t for my mom. I kept my fingers crossed that she wasn't getting ideas of her own for later.

We made it through to the finale, standing ovation and all. The theater emptied and we finally took the 3 foot walk over to descend K2. I’ll make this shorter than it unfolded. It took almost an hour to make a usually fifteen minute (max) walk to the car from our seats. 2 separate ushers felt the need to make small talk with me to while away the time for us to get out of the auditorium. That should have been a 45 sec walk, including the stairs and my gravel-filled knees. I had to promise my mom a milkshake to keep her motivated to get back to the car.

On the drive home, Mom tried telling me the exact opposite of comments she made about the experience earlier in the evening. Rewriting history is as much a part of her as the paranoia. After an all too brief silence she informed me that she's got to put her faith in God to get her through such difficult moments, because only He has the power to get her through. No offense to the holy spirit, but I rolled my eyes. My mom has a history, as is actually kind of common in some forms of mental illness, of having a rather fanatical devotion to religion off and on. Depending on your interpretation of faith and divine intervention, I'd say God has put my father and I in her life to help her get through, but why start being practical now? I kept such observations to myself and let her continue down her conversational martyrdom. As much as I had enjoyed the show, as relieved as I was about getting her back to the car, I was bummed about the ongoing inability we have to connect. She slips further away all the time. 

After several minutes, she thanked me for getting her through it. Me? Did I do something? She told me that my siblings would have given up but I never do. It’s as close to a genuine observation about our relationship as she’s ever going to make. A few minutes later she called herself stupid and laughed like an out of touch teenager. She’s well aware how much her verbal self-harm bothers me. The 'genuine observation' from earlier was just as likely bait to wind me up, since she brought up the siblings. She’s paranoid, she hallucinates, but she’s far from stupid and preternaturally astute about some things. Especially where I’m concerned. They are one of her favorite ways to stir me up.

In the end we got through it. I stopped on the way home and got her that milkshake. Maybe even an order of onion rings for good measure. As we neared home, Mom asked if I had any plans for the next day. My spideysense was tingling, so I cautiously reminded her that I had appointments to get a few of her grandchildren to and various errands to run. "Oh," she lamented, "I was hoping you'd have the day to sleep." Why? "Because you must be exhausted after tonight." Said complete with crazy eyes and the creep factor of a little girl possessed by evil. I managed a completely casual "Nope, got stuff to do."

My evening with my mother aside, I'm left with a burning desire to watch Dirty Dancing for the seven millionth time and listen to the soundtrack on repeat for a bit. The biggest shocker of the whole thing was learning one of my older niblings had no idea what the show was about because they had not yet seen the movie.

I'll be taking care of that in the near future. Alas, the souvenir bear is out of reach along with the tank tops they were selling emblazoned with "I carried a watermelon." Not that I needed something else of my own to collect dust in a corner of my office.

Writing: Seem to have settled into productive rhythm, so I'm contemplating ways to go from productive to getting.it.done.

Reading: Halfway through new book, feeling twitchy over stack of library books I shouldn't have acquired all at once.

Language: 30+ days and counting. Have gotten my dad into the program, just with a different language.

Coffee: Getting back to making morning protein drinks w/coffee. The sensation of more neurons firing is intoxicating.

Naps: I've actually managed a couple this week.

Positivity: The night out with Mom would typically be enough to derail my mood for a bit. But aside from the ever present dissatisfaction with how we relate to each other, I started moving on from it as soon as I was driving us home. I feel like my life is in the middle of a kind of evolution, moving up to some next step of self-improvement, personal enrichment, general good-type-things. That sounds all new-agey to me, but I tend to be an intuitive (or so I'd like to believe) person, so if I have a sense of something, there's a good chance there's something to it. I'm also crazy accurate at predicting the next song coming onto the radio or knowing a song in the first few notes. Seriously, it used to freak out my hubby. Not that any of those things are marketable skills.