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My Mother, The Teacher
Mar. 11th, 2009 11:48 pmSo I've been painting in the house recently. I painted the bay window where the bed is, and I painted some of one of the other bedrooms that is empty for right now. I've been painting some of the doors, too - yes, things do need to be painted, but really, what needs to be done is more than what I can do on my own and I really hate the feeling of taking advantage of my friends' willingness to help out... anyway, I've been doing what I can here and there, and at some point someone else is going to have to come do the rest.
As I was painting in the bay window, very carefully and very precisely, because I know what I'm doing, I had this flash of my mom "teaching" me to paint when we re-did our kitchen. I was sitting on the floor ready to paint the baseboards and she was all STOP! I need to teach you how to do this first! And I was like, um, I've got it, I can paint the baseboards. And she was like, no! I must teach you! So she did, "teaching" me how to dip the brush in the paint, "teaching" me how to wipe off the excess and "teaching" me how to properly apply the paint to the wood to cut in in a straight line. Thing is, of course, that I already knew how to do this. I was maybe, oh, fourteen or thirteen at the time and it certainly wasn't the first time I'd touched a paintbrush and wasn't even the first time I'd painted something in the house (as opposed to, like, a craft project or something) and I remember getting hugely frustrated and probably we got in a screaming match over it. But... I did paint the whole kitchen. My parents have a lovely kitchen and it's all my handiwork :P (of course, being that this was over ten years ago, it probably needs to be re-painted by now...)
So, as I was painting the bay window and remembering this, I suddenly remembered something even MORE absurd: the time my mom tried to teach me how to cough. Yes. COUGH. I was ten. I had a cold, a bad one, and it was starting to settle in my chest, all mucus-y and nasty and when I coughed all the phlegm would rattle around in my lungs. Gross, really. Being that I was ten, this was NOT the first cold I'd ever had, and probably not the worst, either. But, my mom heard me coughing, and would shout (yes shout) "you need to get that up! You need to cough that up and spit it out! You need to get that out!" Then she started to describe to me how to cough up phlegm and I was like, mom, stop, I know how to cough! And she was like, "you don't know how to do this, you were never taught," and continued to TEACH ME TO COUGH.
You don't know how to do this. You were never taught.
At this point all I can do is just shake my head in disbelief.
No, I guess I never will get her voice out of my head.
As I was painting in the bay window, very carefully and very precisely, because I know what I'm doing, I had this flash of my mom "teaching" me to paint when we re-did our kitchen. I was sitting on the floor ready to paint the baseboards and she was all STOP! I need to teach you how to do this first! And I was like, um, I've got it, I can paint the baseboards. And she was like, no! I must teach you! So she did, "teaching" me how to dip the brush in the paint, "teaching" me how to wipe off the excess and "teaching" me how to properly apply the paint to the wood to cut in in a straight line. Thing is, of course, that I already knew how to do this. I was maybe, oh, fourteen or thirteen at the time and it certainly wasn't the first time I'd touched a paintbrush and wasn't even the first time I'd painted something in the house (as opposed to, like, a craft project or something) and I remember getting hugely frustrated and probably we got in a screaming match over it. But... I did paint the whole kitchen. My parents have a lovely kitchen and it's all my handiwork :P (of course, being that this was over ten years ago, it probably needs to be re-painted by now...)
So, as I was painting the bay window and remembering this, I suddenly remembered something even MORE absurd: the time my mom tried to teach me how to cough. Yes. COUGH. I was ten. I had a cold, a bad one, and it was starting to settle in my chest, all mucus-y and nasty and when I coughed all the phlegm would rattle around in my lungs. Gross, really. Being that I was ten, this was NOT the first cold I'd ever had, and probably not the worst, either. But, my mom heard me coughing, and would shout (yes shout) "you need to get that up! You need to cough that up and spit it out! You need to get that out!" Then she started to describe to me how to cough up phlegm and I was like, mom, stop, I know how to cough! And she was like, "you don't know how to do this, you were never taught," and continued to TEACH ME TO COUGH.
You don't know how to do this. You were never taught.
At this point all I can do is just shake my head in disbelief.
No, I guess I never will get her voice out of my head.
