Triumphs

Long ago I had a friend who broke into a victory jig when something worked out well for her. The prompt might be cute shoes on sale in just her size, the attentions of a guy she’d set her sights on, or schadenfreude about the misery of a foe. (She wasn’t deep, or particularly kind.) Her jig was a quick, spasmodic kick or two, a giddy release of the energy pent up in wishing, now manifest in an outcome she desired. I suppose a brief victory jig can be a healthy response to good fortune, though probably best done in private if you don’t know how to dance. In any case, I appreciated the exuberance this friend derived from small triumphs.

I don’t know why I suddenly remembered this friend and her victory jigs, but it got me to thinking about the tiny things we celebrate in life, not the big important things, but the little boosts along the way. And as so much of my thinking does, it led me back to my family of origin, in this case my mother, whose version of a victory jig was singing, and I realize this only now, years past her death. I suppose singing was also how she expressed her sadness–she had a beautiful voice: she was a born singer stifled by a life bereft of music and lightheartedness – but occasionally she broke into silly songs, songs that were almost happy. Her childhood was shaped by poverty, strict rules, a sense of foreboding. She told me that a piano in the flat was burned for firewood…can this be true? Her talent for singing, however, did not go unnoticed. Her mother took her to an audition once, but she was so shy and frightened, she could not make a sound.

Yes, my mother lost her voice at the crucial moment when she might have been on the very cusp of stardom. But she lost her voice in so many other less literal ways over the years, and I can never know who she might have become had she been allowed to thrive. I keep looking back at her, trying to understand, and now and then, there is a flicker. I see her with self-confidence, I see her with a sense of her own autonomy and desire. It is quickly obscured by the chaos and tragedy that prevailed, but lately I am finding light in the flickers. These too are real. The fleeting brightness happened. Such threads can be gathered and spun.

I remember her putting on red lipstick. There was a certain technique, then she would pat her lips together on a tissue, leaving the print of a kiss, and steal a glance in the mirror, satisfied. She looked good, and she knew it. The time would come when, still a young mother, all her teeth were pulled (“too much candy”) and her dentures were never right. But she had great legs. She wore high heeled shoes, and walked amazing distances in them, all over the city. Walking was her therapy, and I understand that now because it has become mine as well.

She had her share of tiny triumphs. Once she found an envelope on the street with a ten-dollar bill in it, a lot of money in those days. And she won a contest: the dialysis center where my sister was a patient had a newsletter in need of a name. My mother’s submission, The Kidney Chronicle, was chosen, and she beamed. I think she felt intelligent then, and she never was recognized for her brand of intelligence, but she was genuinely smart in so many ways. My mother could read Hebrew…that’s pretty impressive, isn’t it? She had a memory for tales, and she could strike up friendly chit chat with ease. And she knew her way around the city.

“I used to walk all the way to Junction Boulevard,” she told me once. She was well into her 80s when she made this announcement. I don’t know what precipitated it, and I had never heard of the street, but I looked it up and it’s in Corona, Queens, where she lived in the 1930s and 40s. She was still proud of having walked that distance. (And she was proud of the plastic gold medal she later won at the assisted living facility’s Senior Olympics for being such a good walker.)

Once when I was a little girl, I came home to find her crying. “You aren’t really crying,” I said, because I was scared. She got angry with me then. But all I wanted was a silly song, a victory jig, a tiny triumph. I always say that I was born of love and good intentions, and I absolutely believe this, but there were terrible fights at home, chronic fights of frustration and rage in which nothing was ever solved. Objects were thrown, horrible words were said, there were sobs in the night, police at the door. My father was magnificent, but my mother was a person too, and I understand now, when I see her face looking back at me in my own mirror, that she felt lost and negated.

I seek the little slants of sunlight, retroactive balm. My mother really did cry, but she also rode the trolley in flower print dresses and she walked to Junction Boulevard. She was swept off her feet by the handsome man she married, and an operatic epic ensued, its reverberations still resounding in my heart, along with a billion other stories that contribute to the music of the spheres. And I spend my time gleaning the triumphs of now and long ago, victory jigging for tiny wins, still being here, remembering, loving.