Two Mothers
We have our biological mothers, but everyone has one person who mentors and inspires us to lead our best lives.
She dragged into the basement of the savings and loan, sitting at the grey metal desk next to mine, looking very much like she was already beaten down. It took a week or two before she realized she was in friendly territory, devoid of catty bickering and office cliques.
Our jobs in this fluorescent, pre-computerized dungeon serviced mortgage loans. Myrna and Stella covered insurance policies and Norma and I tended to delinquencies. While I increased my typing speed writing late notices, Norma found ways to use surplus escrow monies to pay against customers' principles. Announcing a windfall to a customer always brought a conspiratorial grin to Norma's face.
The minding-numbing work reduced us to robots as, most of the time, we pulled or inserted forms into thick folders and refiled them on the shelves. It would be decades before this whole process would be digitalized and performed by one person. Despite our boredom, or maybe because of it, we "girls" learned to laugh at various happenings, especially the antics of the "big boss," who lurked in shadows to spy on us, making sure we earned our $1.75/hour.
I was used to this sort of job, having worked similar offices since high school. Norma, however, had lived a much more artistic and socially robust life, one that I could not imagine from my working-class Mormon upbringing. Magic was about to happen, though, starting with a visit to Norma's house.
As she went to her kitchen to bring us a libation, I stood in the center of her living room, turning slowly to take it all in. Two 1950s Danish modern chairs sat under huge unadorned windows in her Victorian house. Next to each chair was a glass cube of carefully cracked mirrors her husband had created and left with her when they divorced. Apparently, they were too fragile to move. An ornate hearth, painted white, angled into the corner next to a wide archway into the dining room. Beyond these few furnishings, the walls displayed original pieces of art painted by friends, including Noal Betts, whom she left behind in San Francisco.
Suddenly, a glass of wine, what Norma referred to as Gallo rotgut, slipped into my hand. She led me to her backyard deck where her rambunctious Vizla, Dogfrey, bounced around in greeting. Norma explained his name was really Godfrey, but the neighbors complained when she stood on her front porch, calling "God, God, where are you, God! Come home, God."
Our many conversations on that deck covered her years in theater, understudying for Lady Macbeth, and pursuing her dreams in New York. In San Francisco, she worked in advertising. I'm still sorting out where her marriage and two children, Damon and Pandora, occurred during that time. She even worked with local theater, dance, and art people in Salt Lake City, to form a small theater group through the university.
I had finally found someone who could break me out of a life-rut that was literally ruining my health. My doctor called it "man overseas syndrome." In other words, I was bored and couldn't pull out of it by myself. Chauvinistic though he was, he was correct. I needed a mentor, a surrogate mother for the emotional support my own mother was incapable of providing. Though she tried to guide me, Mom had too many of her own issues. She hated the Mormon Church, yet its teachings fueled her expectations for me.
When the Shakespeare Festival offered King Lear in Cedar City, Norma and I left early from work and drove four hours to Cedar City, just in time to sit on the grass next to the stage. We got a good view of the audience if not the stage and a horrible place to hear the dialogue. It was magic, nonetheless.
In the spirit of spontaneity, we ate a steak dinner at a local diner where we cleaned up in their restroom. Then we threw our sleeping bags under a huge fir tree in front of the Globe Theater after all had closed down. The limbs sagged clear to the ground, providing a wide open space for our bedroom. A thick mattress of pine duff gave us a well-cushioned sleep. We were so lucky not to have attracted the attention of security … if such things were even needed back then in Cedar City. In subsequent visits to the campus, I noticed the trees were severely trimmed and ultimately removed. Alas, there goes spontaneity.
We followed up with a drive to Bryce Canyon and a very undeveloped Capitol Reef. A long dirt road ended at a ranch where a middle-aged woman stepped out of her house, along with a bouncy Vizla, and asked if we had reservations for one of her cabins. Ooops! No, but …. Norma immediately bonded with the dog and that broke the ice. Soon we were sitting on her steps, chatting away about her life in the middle of wild Utah.
That was my introduction to Shakespeare other than reading Romeo and Juliet in high school. It was also my introduction to throwing a bag in the car and taking off for an adventure. Norma and I would soon do it all again for a Fourth of July surprise visit to Tuscarora, where her artist friend, Lee Deffebach, lived during the summer.
Lee put us up in her just delivered boxcar. She hadn't even had time to remove the wheels yet, but it was perfect to sit in the open doorway, gazing over the grasslands of northern Nevada, watching an afternoon squall dampen the desert soils. Lee slept in her rustic shack while we rolled our bags in the boxcar. Her two cats wandered the night hunting rodents they left for Lee as tribute. After a rousing Fourth celebration at the bar that attracted people from all over the valley, Norma and I left Lee in peace to paint her huge canvases with long roads disappearing into the mountainous landscapes of the West.
Eventually, we both left the savings and loan, but stayed good friends for years. Her stories and encouragement inspired me to take a "tramping" trip around northern Israel for a few weeks. After that, I had the audacity to apply for a job at the newspaper, and got it. City Desk Secretary, the eye of the hurricane. She started working at the university. After a second sojourn in Israel, I followed her to the university too and we began sharing rides to work.
I don't know when our friendship started to unravel. Perhaps she grew impatient with my rough edges. I still have many that defy polishing. As I grew with the benefit of her mentorship, the dynamics changed. The student was reaching a similar level to the teacher; the child outgrowing the mother.
One day, she stopped by to pick me up for work as usual, but a huge cake sat in the passenger seat. She announced we couldn't carpool anymore and drove off. I stood there, stunned. What exactly had I done to finish our friendship so completely and suddenly?
This has happened other times when I've befriended someone who became a mentor, a surrogate mother so to speak, who would raise me to another level of adult function. They offer their wisdom as well as their friendship. When I display my ability to do what they inspired in me, something sours. Suddenly, I go from pal to pariah. Was it that time I decided not to take their advice and succeeded? Wasn't that a good thing? Did I betray a trust with an independent decision?
My own mother did her best when I was a child, nursing me through Scarlet Fever and other ills, helping me learn to read better, sending me to a school to learn proper etiquette and manners. She wanted the best she could imagine for me, but she also wanted me to stay at my level of social status. We were working-class, not privy to upscale places and certainly to those dreams. If I got too full of myself, she would put me in my place with, “Who do you think you are?”
Girls only went to college to get their MRS. Degree, and if I'd only marry the Bryner boy, I wouldn't have to worry about an education. I didn't need all that for where she wanted me to go. The Church had the plan if I'd only stick to it. Why was I such a misfit?
She was also terrified that if I leveraged myself beyond what she had become, I wouldn't love her anymore.
When my mother was dying of cancer, Norma would visit her in the hospital, sometimes talking about things, talking about me. Sometimes, she would just sit and listen to my mother sleeping, just being with her. Finally, before Mom died, Norma said to me, "you need to make peace with your mother."
I nodded. I agreed. But Norma didn't know how many times I had already tried to make peace, to explain why I couldn't follow Mom's plan. Instead of understanding on some level that I needed to follow my interests elsewhere, Mom thought I did everything to spite her. I was rebelling because I hated her.
Try convincing someone that you don't hate her just because you don't agree with her. It was impossible. For Mom, it was a matter of pride that at least one of her misbegotten daughters would finally see the light and follow the True Path established by The Church, an organization that instilled anger and fear in her. She couldn't even welcome the Relief Society ladies when they came to call. Something had twisted her heart, but she insisted I attend and embrace a faith that inspired a "hedge your bets" kind of testimony. "What if it is the true Church?" she told me one day.
I value my mother's hopes for me. I gave it a good shot. Whatever god exists, however, knows that my heart is not true to that particular path. On some level of magic, I believe that I was sent a particularly powerful and loving second mother to break the cord binding my fate, to open my eyes and see beyond the walls of my prescribed life story.
A few months after Norma and I parted ways, I attended an employee orientation in which she participated. A young woman sitting behind me started telling her friend about Norma, how funny she was, and how she had helped her a few times. A surge of envy shot through me, but I soon realized Norma had found someone else to mentor. I had found other associates more appropriate to the direction I began following. As she disappeared into my past, I knew someone else would benefit from her friendship.
Thank you Mom and thank you, Norma, for your guidance if not your patience. I'm still a work in progress.
Before closing, I want to share Norma's wit. It truly expresses her irreverent view of life, which she defined as Devine Decadence and Sloth. She repeated many of these Normaisms throughout our friendship and I recorded them in my scrapbook along with photos of her and our times together.
While perusing a catalog of prints, she had this epiphany: "Why should I buy prints of the Masters when I have a house full of originals?"
I need to get out of these wet clothes in into a dry martini.
Always be drunk on something. (That referred to your interests and passions as well as booze.)
Calvinism: Work hard, hate yourself, and don't turn on beautiful for nobody.
I may be slow, but fortunately I do poor work. (Norma's work ethic was as laggardly as mine.)
Why couldn't I have been born rich instead of so damned beautiful?
The crux of our relationship became a mantra and the inscription in the last birthday card she sent me. As you can see, the card was "home-made" and meant a great deal to me. I was studying mime at the time and she and I saw Marcel Marceau at Kingsbury Hall on the U. of U. campus.
LISTEN TO YOUR GUT.
All photos except the last one taken by Sue Cauhape
Oh gosh, this is so beautifully written, Sue. Heartwarming then heartbreaking, this story shines a light on the many different factors that make - and break - relationships.
A lovely memoir, Sue. Our lives are made up of so many complicated relationships, aren't they? Including our own weird relationship with our own selves. It is all learning.