My mother, the poll worker

With the election at hand, I thought I had found one of those rare syncronies between my mother and myself. We often seem worlds apart. She lives to have a neat house, and serve others: God, her Episcopal church, my father, us grown-up kids, and her large farm-bred family of origin. My passions are all about me: to read and write, travel, have fun, garden, and hike, when I'm not working at my day job. My mother's tolerance for my differences from her is huge. With her blessing and support, I married a Jew, got advanced degrees, hired cleaning help, and did not scour my pots and pans.

Politics is where the line gets drawn in the sand. For reasons she can't, or won't explain, my mother is a Republican, and as a flower-child and war protester, I am a Democrat. This we cannot talk about.

So to be training as a poll challenger for the Democrats, made me all proud and and full of irony. Across our political divide, she and I would be working the same job.

My mother, aged 83, has been working her local voting precinct for as long as I can remember. I have images of my father heating TV dinners for us in his shirt and tie, mildly complaining that my mother wouldn't be home for hours, and reminding us that she would be very tired. He barked orders for us to run some loads of laundry, and the vacuum. Struggling to do my algebra homework, agreeing with him that this was a big pain in the neck to have her gone, I imagined she was doing something pretty menial, like handing out voting slips, or drawing the voter curtain.

Now, I brag about this, scoring points in my mother's honor. How many people have mothers who have worked the polls for over 40 years, and are still doing this dutifully, at age 83? At the training in the lecture hall of a great, grand law school, I felt doubly assured of myself, like we all do performing the positive acts of our forebearers. It's like we're standing on some really solid floor, or following some time-worn and secure map.

Surely, then, despite my mild anxiety, I could go toe to toe with some intimating Republican daring to harrass a new voter, or insert myself into the conversation between a stern election worker, and a voter about to be turned away from her right to vote. And won't my mother be pleased.

Not. When I strutted my new job on the phone to my mother, anticipating her praise, she corrected me. No, she hasn't been a poll challenger, but an election worker. She and her peers "hate those challengers," and besides, all they really do is follow the voter lists for the party so they can rush out and wake up voters who haven't shown up yet. They don't "dare touch our materials, or get too close." Why would I want to do this, anyway, she continued. Already, with the lawyers flooding into the voting precincts, it was going to be hard to get her work done.

Chagrined, I lamely offered that at least most of the voters were for Bush/Cheney. Again, she countered that there were lots of democrats in her retirement community, implying that she would be ably handling all kinds of challenges, for example, the ones people like me who will present on Election Day.

Thusly smacked into place, I licked my tiny ego-wounds, wondering how I had offended her. Was I intruding on some territory she had staked out, and was now protecting? Did I encroach upon the parent-child hierarchy, daring to become her peer, even her adversary?

The questions had no answers. Can any of us truly figure out our parents? In an act of defensive, haughty patronizing softened with worry, I chose instead to wonder if my mother as one of those election workers who, as our trainer described, "might not be up to the task." How WOULD my mother cope with the demands of a Florida voting precinct? Might she work too slowly, incurring the irritation of a long line? Could she cope with a Democratic lawyer ready to pounce on any voting irregularity?

I can only follow in her footsteps and ready myself for Tuesday. My work as a poll challenger will not really double as another thing my mother and I have in common. We might not even get to speak about it again, given what's at stake on November 2. No matter. This was a small journey back in time, a chance to sidle up to my mother's life hoping to see me in her. I do.

Suspended

My cell-phone rings in the living room below a sleeping loft in Northern Michigan. First thought as I hustle down some steep stairs: change the syrupy, grating 'Fur Elise' ring, a sentimental throw-back to childhood piano lessons. Childhood - mine and my boys' - is over. Thus, the second thought: it's either a client, or Dan, calling from LAX.

First, the mid-life scramble. Without glasses I cannot recognize the number nor see the 'talk' button, so I rush the silvery body upstairs in the cupped palms of my hands, like I'm holding a bleeping baby bird who's jumped too early from the nest.

My fingers finally find the button. 'Tis Dan, and he's calling from a departure lounge. I hear excited background babble and the loud, hollow sound of boarding announcements. My motherhood is instantly cued, like when babies cried, children called to be resuced from monsters, and teenagers slammed a car door after curfew.

Yes, LA was great, Dan is saying, and man, his shirt is dripping wet from hauling his heavy luggage from the wrong gate to the right one, and no, he left plenty of time, and the plane is the biggest he's ever seen, and I love you too and I'll call from Fiji or- maybe not until I get to New Zealand.

Roused and flush with love for our youngest son, who will spend the next year working and traveling abroad, I cannot fall back asleep. It's seeing his 100 ton plane rise through the clouds. Or not.

What ifs board my mind, stowing the heavy baggage that has come with 9/11 and terrorist attacks. The only thought that helps has an ironic shape: in London, Dan 's older brother is tethered to a Reuters newswire and already working at his desk. He will know instantly if Dan's plane explodes upon take-off, and call. And if we get that call...twenty-nine years of parenthood has taught me to block the next scenario.

'No worries, Mom,' was Dan's send-off line. And I don't, very much. Having two children living abroad leaves my parenthood suspended between opposite sides of the globe. This extreme version of leaving home has me swaying wildly. It feels off-kilter: how do I be a parent, this many time-zones away from them?

Today's answer: stop twisting in the wind. Get into the swing of this. It's what you wanted for them, to follow their dreams. Enjoy the freedom and fun that comes with it, and get to work on your own life. Like the Boeing 747, suspension bridges are incredibly strong, sturdy enough to hold up everyone.