On Clogs and Becoming One's Mother

About a year ago I bought my first pair of clogs.  I let them sit in my shoe closet for months not ready to admit to myself what this meant.  I didn't spend much on them,  I bought them secondhand, which I didn't realize at the time but even that fact was was a sign of things to come.  Little things that have been there all along but only recently are becoming glaring.  Like everyone, I have always noticed qualities in myself that remind me of my mom but I think I can safely say, its official,  I am turning into my mother!  I remember seeing my big sisters do it and couldn't understand why they didn't do something to stop it, something drastic.  Don't get me wrong my mother is wonderful and all through my childhood she has always been wonderful, an ideal mother! So the thought of being like her was never horrible, I just never imagined it would happen to me.

In my childhood home, most mornings I would wake up to a sound like no other, clug-clug, clug- clug, clug-clug. The sound of my mom's clogs hitting the wood floor.  Up the stairs then back down the stairs.  My teenage brain could not imagine what needed to be done with such urgency.  I couldn't understand my mother. What was so exciting about thrift stores?  Why  couldn't we go on vacations to Disneyland instead of the boring old Washington coast?  These along with many other things I just did not get.  My mom would drag me to the thrift store and try so hard to help me find something while I walked around dragging my feet and complaining.  I always loved camping but, why camping again when there are places like Disneyland we could visit?

I can't say for sure when this gradual morphing into my mother really started. I think its been slowly happening for years but it has never been more glaringly apparent than the last year or so.  Lately I can hardly drive past Value Village without stopping! I have even found myself dragging my less enthusiastic friends there and trying desperately to find them some bargain or treasure that they have to buy.  Last winter we visited the coast for a weekend and when I got my first good view of the wild, drift wood covered beach and the pounding surf my eyes welled up with tears.  I was so happy to be there.  As I scoured the beach for treasures I recognized in myself that same excitement that I always saw in my mom when we were near the ocean. Now, in my book,  Disneyland has got nothing on the Washington coast. 

If I broke it down I could go on and on about the little things I have notice about myself lately that remind me of my mother. I've been watching it happen to close friends too. All of us taking on the best parts of our mothers. I think it is something that happens to everyone, even my mother.  At some point she turned into her mother too. There is slow realization that of all the things we could be, there are far worse things in life than becoming our mothers. Someday I hope to walk around my house in my clogs and have my daughter hear them make the same, clug, clug, clug, clug sound that my moms did and still do. Its the sound of excitement, of bargains and treasures to be found, the sound of endless possibilities for the day and who am I kidding, clogs are really comfortable! 

~Marta K.

Our author's mother, Judy

 

 

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