Even her name did something to me. Janice. After becoming a teenager, I sometimes called her that instead of mom. She asked me why and I said, "I just like the name Janice." She didn't give me a hard time over it.
My mother was born thirty-seven years ago. I wouldn't call her a 'Hippie,' and she was too young to be part of the 'Beat' generation, but I'd heard some people refer to her that way. She could write, paint, and play guitar, but never made money at any of it; and never cared. It was the doing that was important to her. And I guess I'd say that I had accepted the things that were important to her, as the things that really are important.
Being open the widest range of experiences and emotions was always at the top of her list of priorities. What mattered to her was never 'stuff'. And if what she did brought pleasure, and hurt no one, then as she liked to say, "Whoever doesn't like it, can jump off the Brooklyn Bridge." We lived in New York and spent a lot of time in Greenwich Village where people who lived lives on the edge of common society felt more comfortable.
When I was young, I went to the protests with her and carried signs, more to be with her than to participate. She talked to me about everything going on in her life and I was always learning from her, even though they didn't seem like lessons at the time. I guess I was the stand-in for my father Joe, who did all those things with her before he was killed by a fucking drunk driver. I was seven when he died so I don't have a big stash of memories about him. But I do remember how he looked at me; everyone should be looked at that way.
When I was mature enough to understand, mom talked to me about sex, and girls, and anatomy. I heard about the problems with her relationships. It was open and not self-conscious. I believed the things she told me, but something got lost between the ideas and carrying them out in everyday life.
So I did all the screwing up on my own. I was friendly, and got along great with girls, unless of course I liked one and found her hot. Then I was shy, anxious, and every other thing that made it hard for them to like me back. I went to parties, but didn't have a girlfriend until my second year in high school, and I didn't have sex, if you could even call it that, until I was about to graduate. It was awful. The three times it came down to it, I came so fast, it was over before it began. Talk about uptight. It bothered me so much that I stopped putting myself in the situation.
It seems a lifetime away now, but we're only talking about a matter of months. It was the summer before college and I was in the process of finding a job. Mostly I was hanging around the house with my Ipod and a book. At that time, my mother was seeing a guy named Vic, and he had just moved in. He was okay, but we weren't exactly going to baseball games together. Mostly, we had nothing to say to each other, and that was fine. I didn't think mom was that crazy about him because she was already grumbling to me that she might have made a mistake.
Meanwhile, she was sort of bugging me about doing nothing at the house so much, and when she asked me how come I hadn't been going out on dates, I said, "It's not fun."
She said, "We'll if you mope around with your dates the way you've doing here, I'm sure it's not fun. What gives Danny boy? Is something wrong?"
We went back and forth a bit with me giving her answers that weren't really answers. She was, as always, persistent. Finally I told her, with all the details. I didn't give a shit anymore.
She said, "Has this been going on a long time honey?"
I said, "Long enough." Before she could ask, I said, "I didn't talk about it with you because I was embarrassed."
"Oh Danny, you know better by now. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We can take it from here. It's not that big a deal. Let me think about it for a while, and then we'll talk." So we talked the next day and she told me lots of stuff about relaxing and gave me some techniques to slow me down and told me about the things women like. Most of it I'd heard before, but I could see that she was concerned and wanted to help.
The next Friday night I had a date with a girl I'd been out with a few times. She seemed ready to get physical and when it came down to it, it wasn't much better than the earlier times. I tried to do the things mom suggested, but the results were frustrating.
When I came home, mom was up. She saw that I was upset and said, "What is it baby, didn't your date go well?" I was so annoyed with myself, I couldn't answer. I didn't say anything. She said, "Come on baby, talk to me." I told her that I fucked up again. She said, "Look, I've been going over what's going on with you, and I think that the only way you're going to learn how to control your sexual energy is if you're exposed to enough experiences. Don't take this wrong Danny, but you just haven't seen enough, or done enough. When you're with a girlfriend and things start to happen, we'll, it's already too late in a sense, because both of you have expectations."
I said, "Maybe you're right mom, but what can I do about it?"
She said, "Listen sweetheart, sometimes a mother can do more for her son than his girlfriends can. Do you want me to try...or would it embarrass you?"
My mind clouded for a minute with the possibilities of what she could mean, but I dismissed them and said, "No mom, it won't embarrass me; I really need this."
She said, "Okay...but wait, maybe I'm jumping the gun here...I'm making some assumptions because of the way you uh...check me out sometimes." She laughed a little and said, "This isn't going to work if you don't think I'm...look, do you think I'm physically attractive?"
"Of course mom," I said.
"No, I mean...in a real way...oh maybe this isn't such a good idea."
"Come on mom, don't tell you're going to help me and then..."
"Okay, okay, tell me what you like about my body."
I hesitated and then said, "It looks great mom."
She said, "No, tell me as if you're talking to one of your friends about another woman."
"Okay...man, you've got to see her boobs, they're perfect; a big handful that look terrific no matter what she's wearing, and..."
"Whoa fella..." Mom laughed. "Okay, you convinced me. One thing honey, don't get the wrong idea, this isn't about you and me, and we're not going to be doing anything...you know...this is about teaching you, right?"
I said, "Of course mom." There went my fantasies about mom and me.
"Great," she said. "This is a good week to start, Vic's at his convention, which I'm not sorry about, so we can do this in private." She took a deep breath and said, "Well, it's been a long day for me, so I'll say good night sweetie; we'll talk in the morning, and don't worry, in a few weeks you're going to be a different person."