theology&geometry

My mom just sent me pretty much the best e-mail in the history of e-mails from mothers:

Help!!!
I am in Crazyland! Now all my new emails are loading, and each one of them are loading ten times apiemce. OMG I am going to commit hyperlink-acide. Goodbye.

xoxo with pc passion preferring pleasure but perennially pissed! Please forego the lectures on the superiority of Macs! lol

Keep in mind that my mom’s e-mails get to me in blue italics, which adds the perfect dash of momliness.

I have become one of those kids who can’t stop telling their parents to junk the 2001 Dell and just get a little MacBook. And I will continue to be one of those kids until my parents buy a huge 24-inch iMac.

I’ve been struggling with sour soul lately, so I did a little bit of unplugging, including from Twitter, and what happens? Last night I get a notification that my mother is now following me.

That flash you just saw? That was the illusion that I am not a foul-mouthed, drunken degenerate taking to the sky with pigs.

So, Internet, welcome my mother to Twitter. She has three followers right now: Me, my sister, and “Britney Fuck Vids,” whose avatar is a woman giving a BJ (N very SFW).

You stay classy, Internet.

… when your mother, who has volunteered to do your laundry, offers to give you money so you can buy yourself some sexier underwear.

My mother has been grieving for weeks over a ring that my dad gave her on April 1 four years ago that she lost recently. She left me the saddest voice mail earlier today, first recapping all the local news (my sister has pneumonia, my dad’s heart doctor appointment here in town is for the 9th, etc.) and then wrapping up the message by saying how she was kinda down today because of the missing ring. I talked to her and she seemed okay, but I could tell it was really bothering her.

Tonight as I was leaving work, my phone danced its little pocket jig and I saw it was my mother calling again. It went to voicemail (stupid slow fingers) so I called her back. She then told me all about a poem she’d written for my dad the night before.

Here’s where the story gets achingly cute. You’ve been warned.

See, my dad always always always pranks my mom on April Fool’s Day. First thing in the morning, of course. So, anticipating that and still feeling awful about her lost ring, my mom left a note out for my dad last night. (She read it to me over the phone but I requested that she e-mail it to me too, for posterity.)

It goes:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Please don’t April Fool me,
For I am feeling blue.

You see, it was on this very day
Back in Two Thousand Five,
That you gave me a ring and my heart did sing!
And my hopes for years of getting that special ring that very day
came alive.

O, those seven sweet diamonds that sparkled for miles
Could only make brighter my own proud smiles.

So you see, in a way,
This for me is a “mourning” day.
But I’ll always keep looking in hopes that it might
Reappear to me somehow–and oh! what a sight!

So I’ll cherish the memories of how it did shine–
Until that day may come when I can say, “you’re back! You’re
MINE!”

My dad read the note this morning and got a little teary-eyed when my mom told him she hoped he wouldn’t be mad that she wasn’t in the mood for pranks. He said of course he wasn’t mad. The day went on as usual until just a few hours ago. Mom had been dinking around in the walk-in closet, then came back a little while later to get some socks or something. She said she saw a black box on the floor that she swears wasn’t there before. Lo and behold, it contained not only her ring, but some earrings and a pendant she had apparently also misplaced.

When I talked to her, as she was reading that poem to me, her voice sounded a dozen times lighter than it had earlier today.

Although she’s not exactly sure what she did to this photograph, my mother is extremely excited to have her ring back.

When I was growing up, there was this book floating around our house called Speaking Southern Like It Should Be Spoke, and it was more or less a dictionary of Southernisms. What I can’t say for sure is whether or not it was mean or nice. Like, was it playful self-parody, or mean razzing from the outside? I’m not sure, and it’s even harder to tell since I can’t really find much out about that book online, almost like it only exists in my memory. And on this one random site. I’ll need to rifle through some drawers in my parents’ spare bedroom the next time I’m home to see if I can find it.

Anyway, what got me to thinking about Southernness was tonight’s potluck at the Yarbro-Dill estate, which was Southern-themed and so ridiculously delicious that it defies description. Maybe that’s just my own proclivities busting through the crust there; we’ve done an Indian food night and an Italian night (which I missed due to a case of the barfies) but I tell you, that Southern home cookin’ just practically begs to be lumped into a giant pile in the middle of your Dixie plate and shoveled into your mouth with reckless abandon. The color palate of all the food (save the pomegranate-cranberry deliciousness) was yellow in color and therefore simply had to be mashed together with a hunk of cornbread and shoved down the ol’ gullethole. I defy you to find a better way to feed yourself.

This idea of Southernness is something I find fascinating because I am one of these people who loves and appreciates where I came from and the undeniable Southernness of it, while still rejecting the idea that Southern equals ignorant and racist and hyperreligious. I did my fair share of rebelling against that idea in high school and college by purposefully altering my accent to squeeze out the majority of the drawl — saying “ahn” instead of “ohwn” was the biggest challenge of my life — but now I’m glad I’ve still got quite a fair amount of South in my speech. I never managed to get rid of it all and I can’t tell you how grateful I am because of that. I go home and people accuse me of being a Yankee (walking around downtown Saltillo on River Day with a camera I was told I seemed like a tourist); everywhere else I’m just a country bumpkin. So I can enjoy the awkwardness in both places, and take comfort in the knowledge that I have a home, but I’m not necessarily trapped by my roots.

As I left the potluck, I listened to this voicemail from my mom and grinned like a moron re: its country sweetness:

Southernistic from Lindsey Turner on Vimeo.

Part of being Southern is being told that you’re a joke. That you’re inferior. Southerners tend to shoulder an inferiority complex that most people don’t quite understand. I love knowing so many Southerners who are, in fact, fucking awesome, and who understand that the whole Southern underdog thing is just part of the story, not the whole story, and who blow right past that narrative and supply other much more interesting ones instead.

I’ll tell you what else I like: Going to a potluck where everyone else cooks amazing dishes, and feeling the need to contribute, and having the option to offer up pear preserves prepared from a harvest taken from a tree on your family’s land that’s been producing for four generations. And then having actual people enjoy that contribution. I don’t know. It makes the world feel a lot more manageable that way.

And by “it,” I mean The Crazy.

Behold, some of the notes left around my parents’ house while they were out of town for the weekend:

I kid; we’re not crazy. We just adore words and really like leaving incredibly long, detailed notes and voice mail messages.

She’ll kill me if she finds out I’m broadcasting this stuff on the internet. Krissie, no snitching!

More evidence that my mom is a comedian just waiting for her big break:

1.

“When I finally get Alzheimer’s, I’m going to get the good kind. I’ll just be laughing all the time!”

2.

“I know you can’t stand watermelon, but it’s good for you! It makes you pee. Anything that makes you pee has to be good for you.”

I’m sitting in my parents’ kitchen, showing my sister how to work the iMac I’m giving her (farewell, trusty iMac; you did me right for four years and I will miss you mightily), and explaining the concept of the dock. Mom observes.

Me: You can customize the size of the dock or move it around on the screen, whatever you want. [eyes Mom] Cool, huh? Y’all should buy a Mac. Come to the dark side!
Mom: You mean, ‘Come to the dock side!’

“You know, this stop sign really messes up the momentum.”

“I like early spring, but it’s just still kind of ugly. It’s like a wintertime fart.”