I Get It From My Mama?!?

Ladies (and I guess gentlemen too – but really ladies) has your mama ever called you during the middle of the day whilst you were actually doing work (or just bullshyting on the internets – looking at shoes, stalking on facebook, reading an online newspaper, gossip site), but still called you on yo’ job and asked you the craziest question that has you wondering, “is my mama on crack?” No offense or disrespect to anyone’s mama who has ever been on crack. I don’t wanna dredge up horrible memories. So let’s focus on my mother who I know for a fact is not on crack.

But case in point: As you know I live with my mama n’em. And their house is undergoing renovation. For the past week and a half I have been staying with my aunts. So my mother, God bless her, calls me up (and this is pretty much the exact transcript of the conversation) and says,

“Hey. Question. Did you take the little black clock with you to your aunts’?”
“Uh… Excuse me?”
“The little clock, we keep in the bathroom. Do you have it? Your father couldn’t find the one upstairs, so he had to get the one from downstairs. But we’re wondering where is the one from upstairs.”
“Uhhhh… I don’t have it.”
“Oh ok. Well I guess we’ll find it.”

This is one of those times when I be thinking wtf mama? But really, actually, for real, wanna say aloud, “what the fcuk kinda question is that mama?” But then I know that she would slap the shyt outta me through the phone. And while moments like these baffle me. I realize, unfortunately, that I am guilty of the same behavior.

Sometimes a question and/or need will overtake me and I have to respond to it immediately, right away, like right now before I can even see anything that’s happening around me, have to stop and find what I’m looking for, have to call someone to get the answer and to do so must ask them a crazy question, having them wonder I’m sure if I’m on crack - like when I called my brother the other day and asked him if he had seen my little wallet because in that moment I couldn’t find it (even though I don’t even use it) but it had to be found! Now! And then the realization. The picture coming into focus. Wait for it… Shyt! I’m just like my mama!

This past winter while I was tutoring one of my kids, we were sitting on the couch – me in appropriate winter clothes, she in shorts and t-shirt. And she said, “I’m cold.” And I said, “that’s cause you ain’t got no clothes on.” And then I turned around, like who said that? No, for real, who said that shyt? Is my mama in this room? No really, is she hiding behind that curtain? Did she just throw her voice from 10 miles away? Oh hell no, that was me! Shyt! I’m just like my mama!

While there are things about us that are inherently our own, there are other things that we acquire. That are passed down to us, not solely through DNA, but along life’s journey. I realize that sometimes when I’m just staring into space, I sit and hold my hands in the exact same way as my mother. Like her, I make folders when I travel that contain all necessary flight, hotel, car rental and tourist spots info. I have one prepared for the 5 Spot's trip to Chicago this weekend. And I can adopt her same tone when making it known to someone that they don’t wanna fcuk with me.

It is learned. It is transferred. It is handed down. Some of it is good. Some bad. Some just wrong. But it’s all right there. Deep down on the inside of us. All up in the marrow. Waiting for the exact moment to reveal itself. And we may try to fight it. Run from it. Shun it. Ignore it. But we should really just embrace it. At some point, someway, somehow, we become our mothers. In our wisdom. With our soothsaying. Truth telling. And soul soothing. It’s what keeps the world going round.

That’s my time y’all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!


P.S. - The 5 Spot is off to Chicago this weekend for the Blogging While Brown Conference! And HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the daddies out there in the blogosphere!