Reflections from the Swamp
Last night was a starry night with only a sliver of a moon. Sometimes, on nights like this, with all the stars sharing their speckles of light, I feel my mother’s presence in the subdued light over the pond.
Mom had curly hair with a bit of help from rollers. I only saw her wear pants once while on vacation. Usually, she wore a house dress with an apron during the week. She’d lose the apron when having tea with the neighbours. She always wore her best dresses on Sundays for church. As kids, we were often awakened by her loud, heartfelt laughing when friends came for evening visits.
Every Sunday, she’d invite the farmers from church over for coffee and lunch. Sunday school took place after church, and it was too far for the farmer to go home and back to pick up their children. About ten kids, mostly farm kids, would often walk back to our place with us after Sunday School. Mom was the community’s social centre on Sundays, baking cookies, making soup and sandwiches, and opening our home to friends and family after church.
I remember conversing with Mom about wanting to let my hair grow long like the Beatles. I could tell she didn’t like the idea. My mother’s feelings were visible in her facial expressions. She wore her emotions on her sleeve.
She looked at her hands, palms up, where she saw the squiggly lines that led to her deepest thoughts. The lifeline, returning to her childhood, opened the way for her to memorize numerous Biblical quotations in Dutch, but no Biblical reference came to the surface to rescue her. She was drowning.
Her peripheral view caught a bowl of peanuts in the shell on the coffee table. Mom picked one up, rotated it and then made a fist, which buried the peanut in her hand.
Mary looked at me with her soft blue eyes, and then her gaze shifted back to her hand; she had to bravely venture into unknown territory. She was about to create a sermon about hairy peanuts without Biblical references.
“You see this peanut. See how easily it fits into my hand? The peanut feels safe inside my hand. Now, if this were a hairy peanut with stringy hairs going all over the place, little hairs would stick out when I fold my hand around it. It wouldn’t be gezelligh (cozy); it would be messy. You wouldn’t like that hairy peanut, eh?”
I was flabbergasted by Mom’s peanut story. The peanut story was my mother’s response to me saying I wanted to let my hair grow long like Jesus. I didn’t say, like the Beatles, Jesus was a better ally. I struggled to make a connection between hairy peanuts being messy when placed in a fist and not letting my hair grow long like the Beatles.
I was expecting a Biblical quote about haircuts. Mom knew no quotes about haircuts except for one about Nazirites never cutting their hair. Samson was a Nazirite who lost strength when Delilah cut his long hair. Losing your strength when cutting your hair didn’t support my mother’s argument.
Hairy peanuts might have been a story Jesus told while giving us The Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe peanuts didn’t exist in Palestine. The hairy ones in The Beatitudes, if peanuts did exist, would support my mother’s cause. It’s a good thing Jesus didn’t mention hairy peanuts. I would have lost the argument. Thanks, Jesus and hairy peanuts, for keeping hairy peanuts out of the Bible. I’d probably have a brush cut today.
All the Sunday school pictures showed Jesus with long hair. Rather than say I wanted a haircut like the Beatles, I wanted one like Jesus. Checkmate. All she could do was come up with hairy peanuts.
We had been discussing my getting a haircut at a barber. Mom always cut the hair of her four children while seated on a raised chair. Haircuts for children cost a dollar. We saved a lot of money on paying for haircuts. The chair had two steps folded under the stool when not in use, and a plate with a cookie was nearby for the child who didn’t squirm.
Mom had control of our hairstyles. She put one of a set of bowls on our heads to guide her in what to cut and what to leave on. The result was a bowl-like haircut. That left the hair long on the top but short on the bottom. This haircut was locally known as a Dutch haircut. We weren’t the only family to use the bowl haircut. Other Dutch families also used this method. I was not allowed to have a brushcut like my friend Boomer. You could see a large freckle on the back of his head. Too military. Boomer didn’t want a bowl haircut. He didn’t want to be mistaken for a Dutchmen.
The Beatles had arrived from Liverpool with their long hair, and suddenly, every kid wanted to let their hair grow long. In my mind’s eye, I could see the Beatles in the kitchen, lending me support in my quest for long hair. John said,” All we are saying is give long hair a chance.” I told my mother I wished to have a Beatle/Jesus haircut. I refused to ascend the chopping block as Anne Boleyn did. Things didn’t go well for Anne.
She said she would discuss it with my Dad. We all knew what that meant. My mother ruled within the confines of our home. No shoe ever walked across the polished wood floors. Dad got to say,” Yes, Mom,” “I’m sorry,” and “You’re right” like the rest of us.
After discussing it with my father, my mother decided to compromise and let me have a brushcut. A brushcut! I said no one wanted brush cuts anymore, and kids wanted Beatle cuts or long hair. She said people would think I was a girl. I told her Rembrandt van Rijn, her favourite painter, and Jesus had long hair; no one mistook them for girls. Rational arguments don’t always affect our actions.
I am evidence of her life, her mother’s, and her mother’s mother. A long line of kitchen barbers fills our family tree. They were cutting hair while telling stories. These stories can’t disappear. They go to the place where stories go when they’re done. The stories become stardust. They return to us from faraway places when we remember our mothers on starry nights.
I see my mother less as an image, more like dim starlight casting reflections on rippling water on the pond at night.
Some reflections look like hairy peanuts.
Richard van Duyvendyk 3/25/2024
