Hey Mom, ...Guess where I am?

As you may have noticed I sort of stopped writing there for a bit…sort of as in grinding halt stopped writing for a bit. There are a lot of reasons for that …chief among them is a pretty enormous self loathing but that isn’t what we are here to talk about today perhaps I’ll get into that another time. With mother’s day coming up soonish I was talking about some things with some friends which happened to focus in on being parents and how we presented some challenges to our parents. While I didn’t live with my parents for a large part of my teen years I probably made up for it while I was there. Then once we leave the homestead we break out into the world with hardly a glance backward. Standing there is background are the ones who bled and toiled and stayed awake with worry over our every problem even the ones we have forgotten they have a gray hair or worry line to remind them. We didn’t ponder deeply the meaning of our relationships with our parents or how our relationships have evolved with our own children. One of the stories I recalled after having fled the homestead was being in Europe and calling home at various times to keep in touch with family and sometimes friends. As with most things we tend to settle in to trends or patterns when doing anything for the people in or attached to our lives, so they will expect it or be anticipating the interaction. One of the interactions I had with my mother mainly because she was the one who would answer the phone most often. This was when you left your phone on a desk or attached to a wall. And to call you had to find a phone attached to a wall or in a special house on the street. Well my habit with my mother and the phone was to wait until I had closed a bar and generally consumed a fair amount and it was generally very late or very early depending on how you look at those hours between midnight and 6 am. These calls would usually be associated with me traveling around to various places too. Many of the phone calls would go something like this. Hey Mom, guess where I am She of course had no idea exactly where I was I would be I’m In Paris and I’m drunk It’s 4 am which wasn’t really all that late for her in the US but I wasn’t in any condition then to figure out the time but knew I was ahead of them and If I was awake it generally mean that it was ok to call them unless it was daylight out but there were a few times the bar doors opened and the sun poured in… Oh that is a dreadful feeling and not the point So made several of these calls …from several different places in Europe and always a bit to the wind Those phone calls never lasted very long but they were happy ones and while I could have spent my money and time better while I was there but I didn’t. There for a moment I was on a street in some city not in the same place as my mother saying hey you are on my mind. While my mother and I haven’t always had the best relationship for a myriad of reason as is true with all children and parents it is was it is, again not the conversation. That went on for the entire time I was stationed out of the US. Once even convinced another person with whom I was stationed to call his Mom while he was all back of the bus and to the wind. Was this ill advised … perhaps it was but I had no point of reference as to how his mother would take to her son calling her from Europe with a bit too much to drink… My parents never seemed to care or never protested to me while I was on the phone. Well he calls his mother and says, Mom I’m in Munich and I’m drunk or wherever we were that time…we were drunk Well his mother did not take to the drunken shenanigans of two service men all that well. Her displeasure with me is assumed as I did not speak to his mother but imagine if I had the things she would have said would have been not happy words. My friend turned from happy to very stiff and yes ma’am and no ma’am, it will never happen again ma’am …blah, blah, blah. I’m like dude you are thousands of miles away from this person, you have been trained to be war machine… hang up the phone she can’t get you … Did he hang up the phone? No he did not … he took that howler phone call until the last ten phennig (German coinage before he Euro) clicked away on the pay phone. The party was over for him … we trudged back to where we were sleeping and all of my drunken phone calls were made solo from then on. Well years later my mother went on a trip to Greece with her BFF since middle school. While she was on this trip my phone rang at like 3 a.m. My mother is on the phone She says, “Guess where I am?” I say, “You’re in Greece” She says, “I’m Drunk” to continue the connection She wasn’t drunk because it was very early in morning so she had probably just gotten up and was waiting for the shower in the hotel before beginning the day of the tour. However the connection of my, oh hey I’m thinking of you calls drunken state and all were remember and she made a phone call to me Probably would have been funnier if she was hammered standing near the Acropolis Hey boy I’m at the Acropolis and I’m drunk on Ouzo. But drunk of not we share something that my brothers and my mother don’t. I’m sure they know about the calls and were probably there for a few of them but I only really talked to my mother on those Hey I’m in Prague and I’m drunk, I’m at the Muse d’Orsay and I’m drunk We all connect to the people in our lives in a way that no one else ever does which amazes me that everyone wants to have the same experiences as everyone else but it’s the things that aren’t the same as everyone else that make them stand out. Oddly things are where they started with a grinding halt but this time its playing on the speakers as I’m typing …everything is coming to a grinding halt… no sound … no me… no people…no you … In other news… Wow that is complicated … so complicated that I can’t even begin to explain it . Still in other news… I’m off for the next week and plan on making this return to writing at least a weekly thing perhaps twice a week …we’ll see baby step. Yet still in other news… I’m at my desk and I’m about 4 pints in no phone calls today That’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, you know if you are reading this on blogspot or on diaryland. If you are reading on face book well you are already subscribed. Aren’t you happy. Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015