she buys a hat

"Look at this one, Mom" I say, turning to face Mom as I model a hat from "Danali's Originals" at Pike Street Market. It's a soft shade of pumpkin and is made of fleece with contrasting dark velvet trim around the rolled brim. Stunning, I'm thinking--not on me but potentially on Mom. Hats and glasses just never seem like a good idea to me.

"Let me try it on you, " I say.

Mom scowls, turning her head away. "No," she says in an unfriendly, emphatic way, a way that lets me know that she is uninterested in engaging with our adventure--a tour of Pike Street Market.

"Oh, come on Mom," I cajole, "just try it. What can it hurt?" A few years ago, she wouldn't have tried it on out of practicality, fearing that her head would be worse for the wear. Mom's hair was always at the top most of her mind. Now, things like hair-dos and lipstick completely escape Mom's notice. As annoying as Mom's hair-phobic responses could be, I am surprised to find myself longing for those days: somehow not caring at all seems a less acceptable, less hopeful alternative.

Jennifer joins in with her persuasion and, soon, Mom has allowed Jennifer to pull on the pumpkin hat, tucking her newly-dyed hair beneath the roll of the hat. As predicted--it's marvelous! Mom looks swank and yet comfortable. What could be better? In her pre-Mirabella days, Mom always managed to wear a wool beret or skull cap for at least seven months of the year. Most often the hat could not be found when needed, however, as she leaves it on the back of a couch, in the sheets of her bed, in her chair at a restaurant. Finding that hat took up as much time as wearing it; this should have been a clue (many years ago) that Alzheimer's was afoot.

We try on five different hats, Mom reluctantly consenting and Jennifer and I having a ball oohing and awing over Mom's fashion statement. Mom has always looked good in hats, even if they are only fleece berets. All the while, Mom keeps saying that she doesn't want a hat, not in such succinct words, of course, but her meaning is clear. When I tell her I'm buying the hat for her, she suddenly smiles. A new hat is on the agenda at last.

We leave "Danali's Original's" with two hats in hand--Mom's pumpkin rolled brim hat and my flaming orange creation with purple velvet trim (Jennifer talks me into this). Mom wears hers, mine stays in the bag.

We then go in search of the perfect ten dollar bouquet--there are so many flower vendors to choose from, all of them charging the same "good-deal" price. Mom gravitates towards the sunny orange and yellow dahlias with zinnias peaking their heads out over the top of the bouquet--I can tell by the way her eyes follow the color. "Which do you want, Mom?" I ask her. "I don't know," she answers me too quickly, like it's an automatic response, rather than a genuine inability to choose between two overly-marvelous choices. This is another early sign of Alzheimer's that we missed: it's been many years since Mom could produce a decision about something when asked, whether that something was what to order off the menu or how much to raise the rent for her medical clients at my father's Lakeview Medical Dental Building off of Montlake in Seattle. She ran that business into the ground through her inability to decide the big and the small: Mom has not been well for a long time.

"Which is more appealing, Mom?" I ask her then.

Mom doesn't answer, can't answer. She prefers to copy my choices, anyone's choices. In anticipation, I've chosen the "best" bouquet, but I don't tell her so. We'll come back--give Mom more time to decide on her own.

We meander through the rest of the market vendors then, Mom with her head at a slant and Jennifer and I looking carefully at not only what human obstacles might appear in our path but also at what ways Mom's wheelchair might become derailed, by either the variations in street levels or the ubiquitous cobble stones. We stop and feel the waxy skins of the peppers. We stop and listen as employees of the Pike Street Fish Market begin tossing fish, as in throwing them 15-20 feet through the air like missiles while they yell what sounds like a team spirit fight song--Go, go, go, go"--brings me back to my high school days. One of the fish, a thirty pound salmon, is caught right there in front of Mom's face, its flapping tail and scaly sides coming to rest neatly within the fingers of the burly fish-catcher's hands. Mom miraculously pulls her torso back out of harm's way, an automatic response that enables movement Mom's not ordinarily capable of. This is a good thing to see.

Now we come to the pinnacle of our visit, the original reason for our adventure--a foray into Le Panier, the very French bakery located across from the market off of Stewart Street. Le Panier has a history for Mom and me--we've been coming here for thirty-five years, always in search of the most buttery croissant, the softest Friand, the creamiest Eclair. Our favorite is the savory filled pastry known as a Normandy--a chicken filled open-faced puff pastry delight.

Jennifer and I navigate Mom's wheelchair across the street, avoiding cars and people and cobble-stones with too-rough edges. When going over a particularly rough section of road, a passerby says--"Hey, careful there." Jennifer and I look up and mutter to ourselves, "Mind your own beeswax, Buster." Privately I'm thinking--I'd like to see you navigate a wheelchair through all this.

Before we even get though the open double doors of Le Panier, however, we can smell that we've arrived--the aroma of lots and lots and lots of butter drifts out from the warm store front. I turn to Mom and say--"Butter...butter" like Meryl Streep does as Julia Child in Julie & Julia, attempting to imitate the high pitched cultured voice Streep uses. After a prompting of--remember Julia--Mom gets it and laughs. It's a big beautiful laugh that it makes me want to cry.

The first thing we are confronted with when we enter the bakery are the two, non-wheelchair-friendly steps that grace the front door. Taking Mom places has become riddled with these sort of problems--makes me aware of how the world does not cater to much less accommodate those who cannot use their legs. Jennifer expertly spins Mom's chair around and begins to lower the back towards the floor in anticipation of getting the chair backward down the steps; Lorna and I grab a hold of the chair on either side, down low by the wheel. Together, the three of us bump Mom's chair down the two steps. Jennifer quips--"Bet you didn't think you'd be getting a massage today, Dorin, did you?" Mom doesn't say anything--can't tell if she understood.

Once there on the main level, we begin to survey the pastry possibilities. I know just where everything is--it's been many years since I've been here, but I remember that the Normandy pastries are located on the far left-hand case, next to the cash register. The Almondine croissants are in the right-hand case, farthest from the door. The Friands can be found in both these cases, but a careful eye must be applied, as we only like the under-done ones, the ones that aren't too crisp around the rim. These are the softest inside. Mom knows this too, whether she can remember this right now or not.

"What do we want Mom?" I ask her, pointing out the plethora of possibilities. Mom says--"Don't know." So Jennifer jumps in and says--"Let's just get one of everything we want." So we begin, Mom staring at the cases and me pointing out to the salesclerk the absolute essentials. One Normandy, one Almondine, one Palmier, one Friand, one Noisette (hazelnut shortbread), four vanilla eclairs. We just keep adding and the salesclerk is getting flustered. Our enthusiasm is overwhelming.

Once we've paid, Jennifer's treat (a kindness I had not expected), we head for the rear of the bakery, as we've been told we can exit through the back door, avoid the complexities of going back up the two steps at the front of the store. We are all relieved. Jennifer snaps a photo, just before we re-enter the street: Mom in her Ray Bans and new hat, both of us leaning into each other with our Le Panier goodies securely within our grasp. It's what I do now, record the minutia of Mom's life--with my pen and camera. Her words, her looks, her likes, her disappointments. Everything. I'm like a video camcorder, taking in everything I can. Perhaps if I can see enough, taste enough, breathe in enough I will be okay when she's no longer here to be the subject of my writing, my recording. Perhaps this will be enough. I'm willing it to be.

Before we leave the market, we return to the flower vendors and choose the bouquet I know Mom will like the best. She can't state this preference but I just know--after so many years of sharing each other's preferences, I know my mother's wants and she mine. It's one of the things about mothers and daughter, bodies who are connected at birth and never come completely apart. It's what I miss about Mom, this umbilical relation--how now it's only me who continues to think in relation. Mom is someplace else, someplace alone, in relation to just her own bones.

On the way back to the Mirabella, we stop at one of my haunts--a clothing store known as "Baby & Co." Mom's never been there, but she always asks where I buy "my things"--a pair of dark navy pants with cuffs eight inches deep...or a swing coat cut at asymmetric angles with fringe and threads loosely trailing. Mom's overwhelmed--there's so much to see here. Jill (one of the buyers and a friend of mine) and I bring her fabrics to touch, fondle. I try on short coats and sweaters for her inspection, not because I'm going to buy something right here and now but rather because I want to jog her memory, remind her about how this is something we use to do together, a dance of sorts: changing out of our clothes, modeling, laughing and changing again into some other new delight to parade before each other. Mom hated to muss her hair, so she usually left the trying-on for me--we wore the same size, but for a few extras inches of height on my mom. We did this couture dance through Paris, London, New York, Firenze--did it for years. It was elemental, second nature. And then it was gone.

Mom stays largely disconnected until Jill's dog, Rocket, comes and makes a beeline for Mom's lap. Mom's attention is suddenly brought to the here and now--the wet tongue of a dog on her hand and a paw that insistently wants to be pet. Mom's jerks awake with Rocket's tongue, like she's been Rip Van Winkle, asleep for the duration of our adventure. She lowers her chin and smiles at Jill's dog, even tries to move her hand up from her lap to pet his head, which is a moving target--Rocket is so excited to meet a new face, a new pair of hands. The two of them bond there for a few minutes, dog and woman--I feel relieved. Mom's back again--fully engaged. She's able to laugh then at the swirls of fabric I parade before her. She smiles at the soft wools I drape across her lap. She's here at last. Where has she been?

When we get back to the Mirabella, Mom is exhausted. We all are...but there's still a feast to be had. I haul out our booty--pastries galore. I cut each pastry into four wedges and Lorna gets water and Diet Pepsi. Lorna, Jennifer, Mom and I begin to imbibe, our lips gingerly mouthing each bite as flakes of buttery pastry shower from our mouths. Pastry debris is everywhere--on her hands, on our clothes, on the carpet. We look like we've been through a dust storm of butter and flour--a vacuum will be needed. But we don't care. We are here. We have each other. This is enough for now--it will have to be.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--