This is What You Get

Years ago – it could have been on Mt. Olympus, but I think it happened in Stockton, California – my mother fell in love with Larry, the man who would become my stepfather.

In the myth, she knew he was the one and …

Oh, never mind … it’s really a very tiny story.  I don’t need to make it longer than it was.

On their first date, she purposely came to the door in hair curlers and frump clothes with no make-up — the way she actually looked, before she got ‘put together.’

She opened the door and let him see her, full on, then said, “If you’re planning to fall in love with me, I just want you to know what you’re getting.”

Of course she didn’t say that exactly. I don’t know what she said. The story lives like wordless truth in me.

The myth — and I don’t say that to belittle it, but to acknowledge its power – was that she laid it all out: this is who I am, this is what you get.

What a powerful woman.