changes come

Today my family traveled north, to Anderson, where my earliest memories come from. One Megan was marrying one Jonathon, in the Free Methodist church I attended from ages four to six years. Megan's mother, Connie, is my mother's best friend. There were obligatory "trophy moments" at the reception, as my brother and I call them, where my mother turns half way to us, and gestures, and halfway is still looking at some older person with an open jawed smile.

"These are my children."

During the wedding, as we sat sweating in those old holiness pews, I looked up at the ceiling and remembered something. I leaned over to my mother, and told her in college I wrote a poem about those beams, those lights hanging on their chains in the heavy air. She had the same response she always does when I talk about my writing, which is only significant in it's lack of significance. Not even feigning a response, she turned her head and said something to my dad, and that was that.

I sat for a few moments and just smiled at the lights, for them and for me. Then I put my arm around my brother, and we joked about the modern American woman's look: Short hair that looks like she takes her hands to the back of her neck, liberally coats them with gel, and shoves violently upward. Complete this with plastered down bangs, mercilessly tweezed eyebrows, and a perpetual look of surprise on the birdlike features, and you have a whizbang combination of trendy beauty. I sat in my linen dress and flip flops, with my great shaggy mop of hair draped over my shoulders, shoved my glasses up and sweated.

**

Someone at the reception asked my brother what he was doing. He told them he'd just graduated with a degree in Law and Society from Purdue University, and is seeking employment as a Police Officer. Sufficiently impressed, the inquisitor turned to me, dwarfed and hippie looking, standing next to him. And what are you doing?

"Oh, a little of this, and a little of that," I replied, offhandedly. I am at ease. The inquisitor seems expectant of forthcoming additions to my short response. I wait a moment, then smile broadly with closed lips. After a moment, she turns her head, resplendant with it's surprised visage, and displays shoved-up hair for us both to see. She quickly says something to someone nearby, relieving herself of the awkward moment that has descended on us all. Dan and I look at each other out of the corner of our eyes and smile.

**

Over the meal, my mom was talking to the young mother of a little girl who also shared our table. She asked if the little girl was prissy or a tomboy, and the mother replied that the toddler was indeed the former.

"Seems like you're born one way or the other," my mother said. "Not much you can do about it."