Am I My Mother's Daughter?: Part One

As I write this, I am not wearing any jewelry.  That’s because I’m still in my pajamas.  Early morning is my best writing time.

However, later today, I have a personal appointment and an errand.  Neither require the wearing of jewelry.  I will, however, be spending at least 3 minutes in my closet picking it out. Who the hell am I these days?

For most of my adult life, jewelry was at most an afterthought.  An inexpensive afterthought.  The idea of spending money on real gold and silver seemed ridiculous.  Costume pieces, ethnic jewelry, even jewelry I made myself (I spent 3-5 years in an intense beading phase) made much more sense.  I also went through a very heavy Southwestern phase in the 80’s, both in home décor and jewelry.  OK, by this time I was spending a little more money, but nothing crazy.  Not like now.  

Not like now, when every time I walk into my closet, I see a special rack on the back wall for necklaces, two Elfa-designed jewelry trays made to fit my ever-evolving Elfa closet system, and six white leatherette boxes (with labels of course) for watches, bracelets and necklaces that don’t fit into the racks and trays.

And yes, some of it is real 18-carat gold.

It is impossible for me to separate any of my history with jewelry from my mother.  She LIVED for her jewelry.  Over the years, the soundtrack of the endless jewelry show has resonated in my brain more than almost any other words she ever said to me.  Each piece its own scene in the show.  Where it was bought and when.  When she wore it and why.  And like most award shows, always running over its allotted time. Due to her chronic inorganization, every piece had to be dug out of some drawer somewhere and removed from its box.  She kept every single box, always.

To accommodate my mother’s and stepfather’s miserly ways and insane relationship, Mom’s jewelry was bought through a system.  Mom would mention an upcoming present occasion. Dad would say to buy something and he would pay for it.  As the years went on and they both got older and crazier, Mom would just buy herself something and tell him about it.  I tuned all that out as soon as I left home for good, so I can’t be sure if ever she used her own money to buy jewelry for herself.  I remember very well, however, that after Dad died in 2008, she went on a real spree.  Catalogue purchases, particularly from Gump’s in San Francisco, which seemed to have some special meaning for her.  Trips to her favorite store in nearby Fort Wayne, by herself while she was doing that much driving, with me or anyone else she could corral after she didn’t.   Every trip back to visit involved my enforced attendance on her new purchases.  Every time I hated it more and more.

When’s my mother’s increasing immobility finally forced me to move her to a full-time nursing care facility, I was warned by friends and neighbors that someone would probably break into her home.  It was a small town, and my parents were very well-known there.  She was moved during the worst winter ever, in 2014, and as soon as I could get on the road again, I made a special trip just to go and ger her jewelry and other valuables out of the house.  It involved searching through crammed closets and drawers, and eventually throwing it all into every pillowcase I could find, since there were no boxes or sensible packing options anywhere in the house.    Those pillowcases lived in the storage ottoman at the food of my bed in Chicago for years.  No wonder I couldn’t sleep.

It was during this period that I begin writing the poems that would eventually become my second book, “Heavy Metal.”  The title came to me one day when I was feeling almost completely immobile from the heavyness of it all.  The jewelry.  The maintenance of her home.  Taking over as her Trustee so I could manage the astronomical expenses of her care.  The constant phone calls from the facility about her inability to adapt to life there, and their increasing reliance on inappropriate psychotropic drugs to keep her calm.  During these months, her expensive engagement ring, which she insisted on keeping with her, disappeared.  Everyone told me it was probably theft.  She told me she threw it away.  While this was the last thing the mother I knew would have done, I tended toward believing her.  Living there was making her nuts, and the drugs didn’t help.  I thought it was entirely possible that her long-buried hatred toward my stepfather could have triumphed over her love of jewelry and led her to do just that.

I would continue to manage her care, deal with my own complicated feelings toward her, and hate her jewelry, for the next four miserable years.