83.St.fire.escape.backyard.1962
So I walk into the house, I’m 10, and the first thing I see is a pair of bare legs on the inside of a closed window and the rest of the body isn’t in the apartment. I’m praying to God whoever it is doesn’t fall, the soapy glass prevents a clean identification of the person sitting on the outside sill, but I kind of figure it’s my mother by the unmistakable fluffy slippers dangling from her toes. Now I’m flipping out because I’m scared of heights. She’s four stories up, 50 feet smack over the concrete backyard. My heart’s outside my chest doing a Mexican Bean dance on my T-Shirt. Finally an arm starts swirling away the soapy water and I see Mom’s face through the glass and she smiles at me. I love that smile, and for a brief moment I was not frightened for her I was just amazed at how hard she worked to keep our small apartment clean.
Mom with dish towel attached over her shoulder
When I was boy right through my teens, if I was away a day or longer from the house she’d surprise me and cleaned my room like something out of a movie. It looked so good I thought I was in Beaver Cleaver’s bedroom. This blew my mind, I’d run through the apartment and grab my mother and kiss her over and over and shower her with thank yous. All Mom said while I tackled her, “Watch my head, I don’t like people touching my head.”
This morning I washed ten windows, five storms windows and two screens. When I got to my daughter’s room that’s when Mom’s spirit swept through me, I felt it, I felt her, and she made several passes. As I cleaned my daughter’s space (dusted the knick-knacks, too) Mom stayed with me for two hours and I began to feel the love and enjoyment she experienced doing this for me countless times many years ago.
Growing up, my family and all my friends lived in small spaces, most with two or more kids. A New York tenement mother has a wicked tough job. Keeping a home when the challenges to clean and organized it are near insurmountable. I don’t know about you, but from what I saw, I think most tenement moms had a brittle grip on their sanity.
Mom & Spaghetti – A surprising dinner choice
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. No gifts, no religion (at least not in my family) just people gathered because they love each other. I’m thankful that so many people in my lifetime loved me, told me, showed me, then did it again. Though a lot of them are gone, their love was so sturdy it’s never left. I pull it out whenever I need to and it never fails to ease an ache.
Earlier today, while I was polishing my mother’s few bone china pieces and her Aries statute, behind me I felt that same smile I saw through the soapy window when I was 10.
Thank you, Mom, Happy Thanksgiving.
Thomas Pryor writes about NYC on his blog “Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts,” and curates a monthly storytelling show at The Cornelia Street Cafe every second Tuesday of the month. His photo book, “River to River: New York Scenes from a Bicycle,” is available through Amazon & YBK Publishers. His current NYC photography exhibit at Yorkville Creperie runs through the end of 2013.
