Day 287: I apply my lipstick in exactly the same way my mother did. I cook a Sunday roast exactly like she cooked a Sunday roast - every single step - from the searing to the splash of vinegar that tenderizes the meat - and it must be served with ample mashed potatoes.
I tie the knot in my sewing thread the way she did. I polish shoes exactly as she showed me. There are a hundred things I do in a certain way, because it is the way she taught me to do them.
When my parents married during WWII, Mom waited eagerly for each leave. She told me that on one short leave, Dad came home and they went to “the movies.” It was never just “a movie.” She got all dressed up and wore her white peep-toe pumps, which she hurriedly polished beforehand. They went to the movies, and I’m thinking some canoodling must have occurred, because when they left the theater, Dad had white shoe polish on the pant leg of his uniform. She used that example to explain the necessity of always buffing the shoe after you polish it, or the polish could come off. I never asked WHY her foot had repeatedly come into contact with Dad’s shin.
Now, I wish I could ask, just so that I could tease her. But I’ll keep applying my lipstick, serving my roast with mountains of mashed potatoes, and polishing my shoes just like she taught me, because when I do things the way she did, it feels like she’s standing next to me, walking me through the steps, and that will have to do until I can ask her my questions in person.
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