When I Lost My Mother

When I Lost My Mother

wadsworth atheneum,Hartford ct.

When I lost my mother I lost the past as well as future. No one would ever know me as well as she did and no one would ever remember me like she did – again. Today is Bastille Day. There are french songs as I pass through the NPR stations onto a local Italian show. After an immense bit of Italian speaking they play the theme from Zorba. My mother liked Zorba. My mother also liked the scene in Casablanca where they played La Marseillaise, as much as she liked the farewell scene – the airport fog a kiss a hill of beans the usual suspects. I wonder did she dance like Zorba once? Were there foggy farewell airport  kisses in her life? If you watch Zoba can you be Zorba? Zorba envy or Zorba memory? Who knows. That was the past I lost as well as any possible future from which to ask when I lost my mother.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EvBll8L4Hg

re Joyce part 4

Three minuets to home and home work. Not too bad though. They were nuts for it back in Ireland, sometimes two hours or more of the stuff in third class. She still missed her friends from the little two room school house, neighbours, could walk the lane be at their house in a few minuets. Ten years old and she had lived in three different countries, Ireland, Canada, America, in six different homes and for three months in a tent. Little gypsy indeed, first transatlantic crossing at six weeks, learned to walk on the most exquisite beaches Nysna Indian Ocean South Africa. Now she was learning French, Spanish, long division in Litchfield Connecticut and writing stories and poems, he forte, counted as homework! Voluntarily she'd taken up chorus. Voluntarily she was attending school full stop. Originally the plan had been for home school. Dad would be the teacher. Research into the legalities and curriculum had been done, contact with local support groups had been made and she had drawn up the schedule herself, all prior to the move. During the summer there were tours of the local school. He told her about it. Told her they could go just to see. "What if I don't like it? what if I still want  home school?"  "No matter what", he said, "you can choose." So they went. Met the teachers of the fourth grade, saw the art room, the music room, the library , the computer room, the gym, the stage, the cafe and on the way out she asked, "Dad? Would it be alright if I went to this school?" She hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings about his not being the teacher any more.