The Pear Tree

I had an epiphany today and it was all thanks to Cyndi Lauper. I was in the grocery store, pushing my kids, Miss Two and Mr. Four, in a buggy, and suddenly the song ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ came on, very faintly.

“It’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,’” I enthused.

Blank stares.

Something surged in me. Another side of me. One that I haven’t been in touch with for several years now. The me that used to dress up and dance as Cyndi Lauper for lip-synch competitions at my neighbourhood roller rink back in the early 1980s. The me that actually shaved my hair on one side and wore neon pink nail polish. The me that would bounce and flail my arms and make goofy faces to the music.

Suddenly, and joltingly, a flood of memories tsunamied over me of a very different person than the comparatively dour one pushing a shopping cart through the grocery store.

“I was fun, once,” I wanted to explain.

But they wouldn’t have understood. Not yet. Not at the ages of two and four.

To them, I am a life force. A protector. A motivator. A spiritual guide and a provider of food and bed, clean clothes, hugs and safety. I am The Mom. I’m supposed to (and do) frown when they do something naughty. I smile benevolently when they say something cute. I fret when they’ve been quiet for too long or don’t eat enough or act inappropriately in public, and have started to sport the lines on my forehead that prove it.

And suddenly I wanted to cry because the me I am now seems so old and fettered in comparison to the me that was and how did that come to be?

I remember learning, at the age of 12 or 13, that my mum was once a big fan of The Beatles and Elvis and The Dave Clark Five and being incredulous because this was My Mum, and how did she know about these things? I couldn’t believe that she had once worn miniskirts or crushed on boys or (on the rare occasion) skipped school. But every now and then, that Old Her would show itself.

That’s when she’d do a few doughnuts in the school parking lot, turning the heads of the other, more conservative parents – and us kids.

“That was really cool, mum,” we’d exclaim. “Where did that come from?” Not realizing, not even fathoming, that mums can be cool – or at least that they used to be, before they had us.

Don’t get me wrong: I do not want to shave my head again. I would never wear That Much make-up at one time again or dance like I was having a seizure (well, okay, maybe that last one, but only on special occasions). I wouldn’t even do it all again if I never had kids.

I guess the thing I took from that little trip down memory lane in Aisle 3 is this: That below all the layers of responsibility and seriousness and nurturing and motherliness there still remains a 12-year-old girl who just wants to have fun.

And I can’t wait for my kids to get to know her better.

- Words by Lori-Anne Poirier

- Photos from the arvhives

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The Mother Load is a syndicated column about writer Lori-Anne Poirier’s adventures in motherhood and runs weekly in thePenticton Herald and  www.beaconnews.ca.

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