Mama's Boy

I have a confession to make.
I keep lying to my mother.

I keep telling her that I am sending "the new year package o' goodies" tomorrow. I have given her at least three tomorrow's since the dawning of 2006. She is so good about it too. She keeps rationalizing it for me. She explains how busy I am, how crazy my hours are compared to most, and how it sounds like I have been battling a case of the winter sniffles and sleepy acheys. There's no work involved on my part. No excuses to concoct.

The truth is, I have been extreme lazy. I have been selfish. I have been procrastinating, and I don't have all the "goodies" I promised in her "New Year's Package." So, I spent most of today, collecting her gifts from Christmas, making a list of a few more things I should pick up to make the package complete, making out a check for the money I owe her every month(don't ask), and compiling a collection of the perfect songs for a mother from her son to burn to disc.

Old songs or new songs, it did not matter, my memories flooded my mind this afternoon. With every song I evaluated came another memory. With every memory came another idea of the perfect song to put on her mix CD. I began searching the web for songs like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" by B.J. Thomas, and "I Love The Rainy Nights" by Eddie Rabbitt. My mom is a lover of country music, but I wanted to introduce her to some of the contemporary folk/country/non-commercial stuff in addition to artists and songs I know she would never hear if I didn't select it for her mix CD.

Songs like Dolly Parton's cover of John Lennon's "Imagine." So heartfelt, so simple, and speaks to me, and hopefully my mother, differently coming from a sweet southern woman's voice. This song made me think of my mom's story about watching the Beatles on The Merv Griffin Show (right?) at the Ed Sullivan Theatre on television as a young girl. It made me think of the first time I heard Dolly's song "Me and Little Andy." My mom knew the words to the chorus and would sing along with a smile plastered on her face and laughter begging to boil over the singing.

The song "Over The Rainbow," as sung by Judy Garland directly from the movie The Wizard of Oz! Every November CBS would air The Wizard of Oz, and my mother knew how important it was to me. She would let me record it on to VHS. She would let me sit too close to the television set without begging me to scooch back. I used to think that Judy Garland, or the character of Dorothy rather, was probably what my mother was exactly like when she was 14 years old. In some pictures they did share a resemblance. I used to do my impressions of every character from the movie at family get togethers. Like a windup toy, my mom would show me and my talents off to the rest of the family as I performed quick bits from the Scarecrow, Dorothy, Glinda, The Wicked Witch, and the Lollipop Guild with ease and accuracy.
My mother recently told me to find an authentic version of this song from the movie, because she would like it played at her funeral.

"Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell is, unfortunately, a song I discovered on my own. Joni Mitchell is one of only a few legendary artists that my parents did not have playing around the house. But, I think the most recent recording of this classic is a great way for my mother to appreciate Joni's poetry. It's from Joni's 2001-2002 full orchestra recordings of a wonderful selection of her hits. Joni slowed it down. She is backed by a full orchestra. Joni's voice is full of richer tones, darker tones, and an emotionally beaten cadence. She really has looked at love from 'both sides now'. So has my mother, through divorce, dating for the first time in 25 years, living alone for the first time ever, and learning to love her gay son. This song is also used in the film Love Actually, where the character played by Emma Thompson discovers her husband is having an affair, and she has to leave the room to breakdown. I imagine this being painfully similar to how my mother spent some of her last nights with my father.

Other songs my mother has probably never heard but will appreciate include.
"I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again" by Bonnie Raitt
"Down to The River to Pray" by Allison Krauss
"Proud of Your Boy" a song written for the lead character in the Disney feature Aladdin. A song that perfectly describes my overwhelming desire to never let my parents down and to always make them overjoyed with pride.
"Home" by Michael Buble
"Rain" by Patty Griffin
And even one of Madonna's newest, "Like it or Not." A song too fitting for a gay son, but perfect for a woman of middle age to finally be coming of age.

I can't begin to describe the emotions and memories that passed through me while compiling the perfect playlist for my mama. It made me think of the times when my mom and I would sit in the kitchen and she would play me cassette tapes full of songs that she recorded from her albums. Songs she desperately wanted to share with me. Songs she desperately wanted someone else to passionately love and connect with as well.

The dishes would all be done. The smell of "johnnie marzetti" (ghoulash) would still be lingering in the air mixed with the scent of Palmolive dishwashing soap. The overhead light would be off, but the light above the sink and oven would remain. That was our ambiance. We would pull the "ghetto blaster" down from top of the microwave oven. The microwave was the size of big screen console television set. The "ghetto blaster" was exactly that--a GHETTO BLASTER! It looked like the boombox used in the movie Breakin'. And with generic wavy potato chips and Anderson Ericsson french onion dip, we would listen to Karen Carpenter, Brenda Lee, Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, Lee Greenwood, Diana Ross, Neil Diamond, Loretta Lynn, the list goes on. I liked them all because my mom liked them. I used to get annoyed when she would snap at me to shut up and listen to the words to some song by Barbara Mandrell. I didn't want to listen to the words. I just wanted to talk to my mom and have the music be the background. Thank god she did that. My love and appreciation for music and it's lyrics comes directly from my mother's influence. She is a lyric woman. She can connect with a lyric better than anyone. The more spelled out it is, the more direct punch it throws her.

As I sat at my computer hunting through Itunes, Limewire, and my CD wallets, I recognized and acknowledged something within myself. I am my mother's son. The songs I listen to and connect with are in the same vain as the ones my mother did 20 years ago. She heard pain in those songs in the kitchen. She heard struggle. She heard truth. She heard love. She heard reality. That is exactly what I cling to when discovering a new song or artist, only I don't have a son to pass it on to. I, unfortunately, force my boyfriend through very short versions of what my mother and I did. I am sure I have even made some of my friends sit through one of my diatribes on why a certain song makes so much sense. Thank goodness for unconditional love.

My mother and I are so alike it's amazing. Everytime I go home, she has a few new songs she needs me to listen to. And although I have developed my own tastes and may not like the song for myself, I realize what it means to her. I also realize that I do the same thing. Three years ago we sat up laughing till we cried as I went through what remains of her vynl collection and recorded some songs by holding up a small boombox recorder to the huge speaker of her ancient turntable. We laughed because we had to be so silent in order to try and record the songs without background noise. It was so redneck and down-homey we would burst out in hysterics. I now have some audio documentation of this celebrated Christmas.

Music of the heart. Music of the heartland.
The only thing I can't believe is that it took me nearly 29 years to make such an obvious discovery about my mother and I.

I am my mother's son. Fully and completely.

A mama's boy and proud of it.

I love you mom!