I’ve never been hit in the head with a concrete block. Not before I answered the phone the other night. It was my mother and she cut to the chase: “Brian? I sold my house. I need to be out in June. I’m coming up this weekend to see about buying or renting a place. We’re going hunting Saturday. Be Ready!”
Click.
The block hit me flat side down, clean in the forehead.
Ker-splatt!
I sat on the floor watching stars orbit my head and considered calling 911. What would I say? “Yeah, hi, I just got a phone call from my mother about her moving up to St. Augustine. It laid me clean out on the floor and I think I have a concussion. Could you send someone over with a couple Harvey Walbangers … stat?”
What had just happened?
Let’s take a moment to analyze the conversation — deconstruct it in an attempt to make sense of what had just transpired:
l “Brian?” — Who else would it be, mom? I’m renting the house out to gypsies?
l “I sold my house” — How was she able to do it? In that horrid Tampa real estate market where the houses move less than the stale Gulf air. It was supposed to be impossible! People had assured me as much. “Don’t worry,” they told me. “It’ll be years before she can sell that thing.” Good advice.
l “I need to be out in June …” — June is right around the corner! We need to prepare. We need provisions, supplies, counseling. We need to get ready, and come up with contingency plans. We need to set rules and boundaries. This is a woman who has been known to call her sons eight times in a single night to explain her theories on economics and how air conditioning is going to be outlawed. Or to query us on why her washing machine is making a noise like a goat. “Do you think there could be a goat trapped in there?” she’ll ask. When she’s up here we’re going to have to go over to her house and look for the goat. (And knowing my mother’s luck, there’ll be one in there.)
l “Be ready” — Be ready? Be READY!?! There’s no “being ready.” That’s like saying there’s a comet coming right for you. Why don’t you grab an umbrella?
l Click — Left with the silence … to collect my thoughts and dwell on the future.
Ker-splatt!
OK, get this straight: I love my mother. Overall — overall! — I’m thrilled she’s moving up here. This is what she wants, and she’ll be closer to my daughter, which is a good thing. St. Augustine is her kind of town, and she should fit in fairly well with the natives and other assorted crazies.
But the idea does take some getting used to. For starters, in my mother’s eyes my brother and I have never really grown up. We’re still “the boys” to her, and she sometimes talks to us like we’re 6-year-old ruffians, waving a hand at us in her oh-so pleasant way of dismissing what we’re saying or shoosh-ing us. In her defense, sometimes we can act like 6-year-old ruffians, and my brother does still wear diapers, but that’s not the point. We’ve grown up, established our own lives and been very successful in our endeavors.
Some part of me pictures her showing up at my house each morning to take me to school or to make sure I washed behind my ears. I never wash behind my ears!
I know these are just irrational fears — ones that come with any new situation. It will all work out, and overall it’s exciting. I honestly believe that.
But there is that part of me — the one still smarting from the brick to the head — that has to wonder. Maybe a few more Harvey Walbangers are all I need, or maybe some time to adjust. Which reminds me: June will soon be upon us and I better get supplies and that counseling scheduled quick.