I rode around it, feeling instead my lips - so dry and heat-sucked that they would chafe off in a breeze - the trickle of sweat down my back into my shorts, the ache in my lungs and my quads. Up I kept going. Climbing High Grade and digging deep. For I still can and it is a beautiful thing to have that desire. The drive to keep pedaling, to use the cleats to pull up, to maximize my pedal stroke. Drive feels good. And the confidence that I could - keep pedaling, and my steady cadence would take me the 50 miles and 5000 feet slated for the ride. My legs and lungs answered.
Inside, my mind imitated my pedaling feet, circling the issue, swirling around it. My mom. I have had low grade depression since visiting her. Her health is finally stable and she is home. But home like she used to be. Home and driven. While her health is stable, she is no longer strong and mobile enough to accomplish all of her aims by her own hand. When I pull in from Colorado, she sees two hands that can. It was a flurry of commands and pushes to weed the garden, put cages on tomatoes, drive to 6 stores, redirect vines, wash windows, fetch this or that from the basement or garden, cut asparagus.
We kids used to joke that she was a slave driver - we were her slaves and she had us for the purpose of getting work done. It is a poor joke in terms of US history, but I felt where it came from on this visit. She was driven and drove me. She wants the life she used to have - dominion in her garden and kitchen. She was a dynamo in her day, raising and feeding eight kids, milking 72 cows twice daily, haying in the summers, chipping silos in the winter. She still has the drive but doesn't have the answering strength nor mobility. So she drove me. And it felt bad. There was no time to stop and gawk at the baby killdeers on the lawn; "No, I need you to get the fork for weeding for me before Dad comes."
That is a piece of it too. Being caught in the middle of their war. When she pulled me away from working with him, he came to where we were weeding and said, "No, do not pull that weed. It's too dry. Let it go, TT. We are not going to do things the hard way. Wait for rain and then come out and pull these."
It wore me out, pulled me off-center. I felt like a failure of a daughter because I could never do enough. There was always more on the list. I was always wanting. And there was no meeting of minds, no questions about my life and interests, no joy. She has never been a confidante kind of mom, but we've had connection in the garden work or her health and my care of her. It wasn't there this time. There was just the demand to do more work. It makes me sad. I remember the kid I was and how I struggled with it. That kid came right back on this visit and was reeling. She's still here though I've been back in Colorado for a week.
I get the drive. I get the joy of the drive. I also get aging and loss. I am happy she is "raging against the dying of the light" (thank you, Dylan Thomas). As I want to PR every time I ride my bike, she wants the big beautiful garden she has always had, to cook three meals a day for her family, to make quilts that fetch $6,000 at the church auction. And she wants to do it all in a day.
I am still circling. I get pieces of it. I understand her desires. I understand my desire to please her.
I also know that I can't. It's an impossible mission. And that's the rub. There is no steady cadence that will allow me to accomplish her aims. It's full throttle PRs every second. I can't do that. It is not possible. (Much less right. Even in a 9-day visit, I need some sense of self.)
Now it's accepting that and figuring out how to not feel like I've failed her. I need boundaries when I go there. I would ask her for a list, but she's never been a list person. She's more of a torrent of energy - what needs doing multiplies as we get into a job. I could do a dedicated number of hours per day, clock in and clock out.
And meals... I have to set boundaries around those too. I developed an eating disorder as a teenager - out of that drivenness of the house and with the weirdness about food. She feeds us like crazy. The last three days of the trip I never felt hunger. The last morning I woke up to a breakfast of poached eggs on toast with hollandaise sauce and breakfast sausages. Plated. There were two kinds of baked desserts available at all times plus ice cream. And it gives offense to not eat the goods. That's the other piece. I don't do well with sugars. I've known that for years. She doesn't ever ask me though. Just gets sniffy if I don't eat the brownie. It's a power struggle.
Maybe underneath, that's the other piece. Power within our family. Her and dad competing, and whatever you can do to win...
Ugh! I just want my soul! To stick the knife into the brownies at 35 minutes and have it come out clean. Better, no brownies at all! Just my bike and a steep-ass hill, a steady cadence, sweat on my back and butt, heat-chapped lips... yes, that. Give me that!
I am still pedaling up this one.
