My mother is beautiful like Marlo Thomas. When I was very young, I watched the opening to Thomas’ sitcom, “That Girl,” rapt each time Marlo twirled in a circle, her smooth hair perfectly curled up at the ends and spreading out around her shoulders. When she threw her hat into the air and flashed that famous smile, I thought it could be my mother, should be my mother, may be my mother.
My father is tall and curly haired. It seemed he always had pens in his pocket. When he came home from work, his briefcase and coat smelled of the cool, Southern California night air. It was as if the fog traveling in from the coast caught and settled in the seams and leather, invisible. Sometimes I went into the closet, just to stand in the folds of the hung overcoat and breathe the slight tobacco and grease smell of 1960s aerospace.
My parents had their own tones. The sounds of my mother included the low, sporadic, buzz of her sewing machine, the click of the iron heating, the clunk and lolly-gallop thud of thread spools rolling forward, from the back of her scissor drawer as she pulled it open.
She sewed with the precision of a mathematician, and the intuition of a painter mixing color to create shadow, or water, or leaves. She calculated seams and measured until the cloth spanned perfectly over our thin hips and we’d twirl, careful of the pins.
The sound of my father was the noise of projects and immersion, of carrying out of some plan for repair, invention or salvage. I learned from him to peer down the side of a length of wood, to turn it in my hand, head cocked, checking for warp. “That’s a good piece of wood. I can use that,” he’d say. Sometimes, without asking, my friends and I took pieces to build forts and cubbies; we’d try to hammer nails into hard planks.
When we got to the “Come see!” stage, he’d come, and run his hands along the side of what we built, politely skipping over the nails that never fell flush. “That’s a good piece of oak you used there. You get that from my pile?”
We didn’t know the difference between oak or mahogany or pine; we were gleeful with creation. “Get me a hammer,” he’d say and then fix a few of our nails so we wouldn’t get snagged or cut.
My parents were like balls spinning in the hands of a juggler on a bike. They each had their own thing going, with all four children, balanced or not, in the middle — yelping, squealing, laughing.
Right now, their engagement picture sits on my office couch. It’s an 8-by-10 black and white, but I know the color of her dress by heart. It’s a deep navy blue and tucked behind the tiny pleats, like a flash of light through drapes, is a soft pink. It tucks in at her waist and then flares. The neckline is scooped from shoulder to shoulder. My father is in a light suit, white shirt, fundamentally cool skinny black tie. They are unposed, as if someone caught them waiting between bulb flashes. Their hands interlace — one of his fingers, one of hers — until the hands knot shut like a closed flower, their palms touching.
I’m framing the picture for them. They’ve been married 50 years; my siblings and I are descending for a celebration.
After the wine, and the frenzy of grandchildren and spouses, and the push-me-pull-you of who wants to do what and who gets to be in charge, things will settle down to their low-tide calm.
Then my mother will show me the quilt she’s creating for my brother with the fabric he brought from Thailand. She’s set it up on a wall so she can manipulate and situate the colors, puzzle-like, just so. My dad will show us the workshop he’s building, the new fishing poles, the wood he’s refinishing for the bunk beds.
Later, they will sit beside each other on the couch. They will be unposed and will look, to me, as they do in the photo. She is still beautiful, his ties are still cool. And they still hold hands, fingers interlaced, like a flower closed tightly, palms touching.
E-mail Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza-Chavez at grace-notes@comcast.net. Read more of her essays at .
