“What do you think of this?” she asked.

I had my head down trying to sort out what seemed like a byzantine list of options. To assemble my custom burger, I had to choose from five different categories of exotic ingredients. I was overwhelmed on page two of a four page menu.

 “It’s a lot to read,” I mumbled.

“Not the menu,” she barked, “This. What do you think of this?”

I looked up. She was nodding her head and waving her large hand with glittering fingernails toward my son and his boyfriend. She pointed directly at each of them in response to my blank expression. “This,” she repeated, “What do you think of this?”

The waitress was about my age and six feet tall. She was a powerful mix of broad shoulders, pink sequined sweater, bejeweled cropped jeans, an Adam’s apple and impossibly high heels. Her sassy tone barely masked an intense weariness of stupid people. She was staring at me, waiting.

We were at a diner that called itself the “Gayest Place to Eat” in our city. My sister found it on the internet and thought it would be fun for us to have lunch there. So here we were, my sister and I sitting on one side of the booth and my son and his boyfriend on the other. We had been laughing over the menu, teasing my son that he should order the “gayest” drink or the “gayest” appetizer. All four of us were trying to outdo one another in creating the perfect combination of entrée, side and cocktail from the endless flow charts. We had been oblivious to the waitress until now.

Although she had startled me, I knew by this point that she was not asking about the menu. But I didn’t have a ready answer to her question. No one had asked me this before. My son came out at the end of his freshman year of college. He is a very verbal person and we are close to him, so there was no long, drawn out secret and reveal. He talked to us a few months after he knew and we shared in many early and ongoing conversations; listening as he worked through his own understanding and self awareness.

I confess my initial reaction was not tidy. I was a liberal parent forced to apply her declared values in an actual and not theoretical situation. No one rehearses for this. He told me at 10:00 p.m. one night. I said a bunch of ridiculous things (“Will you still bring someone home for Christmas?”) and left on an airplane the next morning. I flew three hours in a daze and then sat in a parking lot for three more hours. I catalogued all the narratives that might be shifting, all past and future decisions, calculating exponential loss and fear and worry.

Then I thought of my son. Was he any different than he had been at 9:59 pm? Was his future any less dazzling? I could see him in my mind, the delightful boy he was and the amazing man he was becoming. His story, the one he would write on his own, was just getting interesting. My part in his story had evolved into a more supporting role, but the script to our relationship hadn’t changed. In fifteen hours I had moved through a million possible scenarios and ended up the same proud mom of the same great, gay kid.  

The waitress was still looking at me expectantly. I thought later of all the things I should have said: clever things, Eleanor Roosevelt things, enlightened-earth-mother things. But this whole reverie was happening in seconds and too soon after my menu confusion. So I blurted out: “I think it is wonderful.” She made a “humph” sound and glared sternly at the boys. “You are young, pretty and lucky. You have no idea what it was like” and walked away.

This was good because I really had no idea what I was going to order.   

Her voice is flat, slightly nasal, she whistles slightly on certain sounds. She is also crystal cut articulate and inexplicably expressive. Accustomed to hearing out-of-work actors ham their way through various texts, I was taken aback for about seven seconds. Then I realized that I was having one of those book moments. This is where the author must know me and lived in my head for some length of time before writing the clues to my entire being in a story that I needed to hear or read at exactly that moment. I sat in partially caffeinated astonishment and listened while she identified so many loose, raw, frayed, sore ends and brought the edges together with a daub of intellectual Neosporin and empathic Band-Aids.

I did not expect to connect with her reading or writing to such an extent. Typically it is easier for me to process meaningful content when I am holding a real book, solid paper and ink. I listen to books on CD for self improvement, like lifting barbells or learning scales on the piano, purely medicinal.  I practice listening in the car for when I get out of the car and have to interact with live humans. I have a history of trouble with talking and ironically just as much trouble concentrating on other people’s talking.

The trouble is that I stutter. All speakers stumble or repeat, but at some point the intensity and frequency cross a line separating normal from a diagnosis. As a kid the label became apparent every time I spoke. Now it is more intermittent. Stuttering has settled to the bottom of my speech patterns like dirt, tamped down, until a breeze of anxiety or a gust of circumstance stirs up a choking cloud of dust. A pause will be a little too long; the twist of my mouth won’t quite match the emitting staccato. It is uncomfortable for everyone when they figure it out, as if my skirt flew up to reveal bad underwear. Although I have become more fluent with age and confidence, a few side effects linger. Aside from the obvious, stuttering kids do not like silence – silence equals block – and they do not listen well. Another person talking is time to prepare and organize for the next attempt at speech. Shuffling through imaginary flash cards to find the right combinations, we think: are they done? No? Great, then switch out toast for wheat bread, say butter instead of jam, eggs are OK but forget the detail about juice. Reality is edited and accuracy is only valid if the words don’t stick to our teeth.

My vocabulary and I got away with this for years. Smiling, pretending to pay attention, meanwhile a thesaurus of pathology going on below the nod. Then it became professionally important for me to gather more information before I blurted out the first thing I could say without stuttering. I needed a broader skill set to achieve real expertise in my field and this required that I learn to listen to people who were speaking to me more than I thought about what to say next. This scared me, without my constant mental manipulation, I risked exposure and verbal failure.

But I was determined to learn. So I developed listening strategies. I asked questions to buy time. I forced myself to pause and collect my thoughts after the speaker was done speaking in spite of the stomach ache inducing minutes of silence. I tried to notice body language, something I never had the energy to observe before. I allowed myself to say, “Can you explain that again?” or “I did not quite understand” instead of assuming what they meant because it was enough to launch my next statement. I forgave myself when my response wasn’t perfectly formed on the first try. I encouraged people to tell me stories because they maintain my focus more than explanations. And I began listening to CDs in the car to practice keeping my mind from drifting. I am not always successful and sometimes worse for having attempted goat (hard g) when I should have said barnyard animal with small horns and a beard (all soft breathy sounds). But there is always the next conversation.

Halfway between here and there in my long drive, I started thinking about what might happen when I arrived at my destination. I would leave Anne in the car. She would wish me well, having kept me limber and quiet, ready. Walking into the store, from one dialogue to another, I could hear new essays. People will tell me how they made a customer happy or frustrated, how much they like or dislike a co-worker, about their children or puppies, their latest love or fling, a book they just know I will love. My first urge will be to solve or compare in homilies containing long vowels and devoid of the letter d. But I will resist. And in about seven seconds, I will have an epiphany like the one in my car. One of those moments where the speaker must know me and lived in my head for some length of time before naming the clues to my entire being in a story that I needed to hear at exactly that moment. Unexpectedly, I will also hear them stammer, stumbling over words that are hard for them, pausing, blocking, desperate to be heard, worried about being understood. I might realize that the difference between us isn’t very different when we are really paying attention. True listening, calming our internal din, intent and open to what the other is conveying in words and movement and space, can have surprising echoes, familiar and often comforting.   

But I was still driving. On the third CD, Anne described eating the “crispy toes” off an apple fritter. I am sure a passerby could see me licking my lips through the car window. My mouth full of dough and frosting, my hungry head expanding, listening for more.

Not many women would anticipate spending an entire weekend with their mother-in-law. Fourteen hours of driving round trip and two days in a very small town. But my husband and I had a dilemma and my mother-in-law doesn’t fit the sitcom stereotype. The situation was typical of busy parents: two boys, two places to be – a family weekend at college and a high school play – two freshmen starring in two different roles needing support. After many discussions and a magic eight ball, I was to be the college representative and wanted a traveling companion. My mother-in-law came to mind. We asked and she accepted.

My mother-in-law is seventy-three years old. She is genteel in manner, trim and attractive, dressed by a Nordstrom personal shopper and juggling a dance card filled with parties, fund raisers and dear childhood friends. She is an active and respected force in the conservative world of Utah politics and religion. Opinionated and confident, she doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind but has the social finesse to know when to edit. I know she worries about us, the family that lives the farthest away from her: in distance, in ideology, in lifestyle.

So I was careful on our drive to the college. I skirted topics where our worldviews might diverge. We had not spent much time together over past years and were content wiling away hours catching up on trivialities. We ate at McDonalds. We argued over who should pay for gas.

Then we met my son. He was chatty with a candor that I had been avoiding. Heady with his shiny new liberal arts voice, eager to share every detail of his emerging adult narrative and true to his inclination toward provocation; he managed to share his ideas about premarital sex (open to whatever happens and “will know the right time”), extract my ideas about gay marriage (“Mom, what exactly do you think are the differences between civil unions and marriage?”), announce his political leanings in the upcoming election, hint of weekend revelries and, of course, refer to religion multiple times (especially his musings on Japanese pilgrimages) . . . all before dinner. Every time he opened his mouth my shoulders tensed up to ears. My concern was that my mother-in-law would be offended and I was way out of my comfort zone for potential family conflict. What would this proper grandmother think about my son and, really, about me? I felt caught in what I perceived to be the huge gap between a freethinking young man and a traditional older woman. I felt responsible to act as a liaison and mediator, I was the one who had brought her along.

Then I began to notice her actual reactions to my son’s revelations instead of my imagined ones. She asked him questions about why he thought in particular ways, what his friends thought and what experiences he had had so far. She shared her own beliefs but in a teasing way, with a twinkle of self-deprecation and mock accusation. She looked him in the eye. He patted her on the head. She praised some behaviors while not agreeing with others. He challenged her and she challenged back. Interspersed in the conversation they both admitted to hating email, iPods and eating too much. We referenced current movies (assuring her that not remembering the plot to “Eagle Eye” had nothing to do with dementia) and old classics, music and TV, books and places we had visited.

By the time we were at dinner I had forgotten my clunky role as the link in the generational chain. There was a moment when I realized that if I closed my eyes, I could not tell the ages of each speaker. Without physical clues, without preconceived assumptions about their backgrounds or beliefs, without notions of young or old, my son and his grandmother are remarkably similar people. They are the kind of people that we call “old souls” when they are young and “young at heart” when they are old. They move in and around and through issues that separate the less agile and keep some people mired in stasis, prone to intellectual algae and murky vision.

As I observed the two of them, I began to recognize those characteristics that I see in people who seem younger or older or somehow ageless. First, they put their relationships before their philosophies. Any time the conversation threatens the other person – they instinctively soften, divert or change the tone without giving in or up their argument. They can talk about controversial topics because of a fundamental respect and affection for the other person that transcends differences in ideology. Second, curiosity connects each of them to their changing environment. They keep pace whether they participate or not, they know what is going on around them. Both engage and enjoy the moment. Both adapt and are flexible. Third, they have a profound sense of the absurd, a pragmatism that refuses to take the world too seriously, comfortable with the occasional cosmic shrug when there is no reasonable explanation. They tease and cajole and laugh easily and at everything, especially themselves.

This is not to say that my mother-in-law did not leave my freedom-drunk son without reservation. She followed up with me on a few of his declarations. But her intent was to clarify and not to judge. There was no need for me to mediate after all. There was never a gap to fill. The drive home was an open dialogue and I was less uptight. The two of them had set a precedent that permeated the car.

I read once that we don’t change as we grow older; we become more of who we are. When I see my mother-in-law and my son together, I sense that she was herself at eighteen and he will be himself at seventy-three. Which leaves me in the middle, wondering if I am more one way or another, aging or ageless, my sneakers clinging tightly to edge of the fence.  

Here is what happened. The teacher asked us to create family crests. We were given a sheet of construction paper with a shield shape mimeographed on one side. The assignment was to divide the shield into parts and illustrate some aspect of our families in each space. We had crayons, more construction paper, scissors and glue. As was, and is, my habit, I focused immediately and began to work. Most of the spaces were easy, but I thought carefully about how to portray my mother. She was aware enough of the women’s lib movement to feel she should declare and define her stay-at-home choice. She would say, “My husband is a manufacturing engineer and I am a domestic engineer.” At that age I thought this was clever and wanted to immortalize her role in my shield. So with practiced paper doll finesse, I cut a tiny broom with individual bristles, a dustpan, cooking utensils and an apron with delicately placed flowers. I arranged everything neatly in the mom part of the crest and sat back to admire.

As I glanced over to the desk next to me, I noticed that my neighbor had reproduced my mother’s symbols in detail, coloring with crayon instead of cut paper and drawing a vacuum instead of a broom, but everything else was the same. I accused her of copying me and I grabbed and crunched the offending shield. When she did not seem to grasp the import of her sin, I shouted and conveyed my wrath with a tug on her hair. We were dragged into the hallway and eventually the principal’s office, she sobbing and me trash-talking like a prize fighter. No placating assurance that imitation was flattery or the value of sharing seemed to penetrate my fury. She copied me.

Feel free to judge my twelve year old self harshly; I was being unreasonable. But the object of my rage was not a sympathetic protagonist. I remember her name: Sandy. I remember her outfit: fluffy pink sweater and perfect cords. I remember her manner: she would maneuver sideways between the classroom aisles, holding the seams of her pants in a perpetual curtsie, never touching edges of the dirty desks. She was pretty and surrounded by a crowd girls at recess. Previous to this assignment, I had been invisible to her and her friends.  

The epilogue to this story takes place in a corporate meeting where everyone is smiling and nodding and admiring each other’s shoes.

One of my peers presents an idea, a great idea, what leadership gurus love to call “an elegant solution.” Only it isn’t hers. It’s mine. We discussed it yesterday and now it sounds as if she dreamed a vision of divine inspiration and offered it up with music and ambrosia. This is not the first time. She also has lots of friends at recess and postures to get more and better friends. I stifle an urge to tear up her notes, scribble purple marker in her daytimer and dump the contents of her fancy too-big tote bag into the toilet. These are not acceptable grown-up impulses, so I smile and nod and look at my shoes. But my hands clutch and I can feel her hair in my grasp.

After thirty plus years, I do believe in collaboration. I love to work with smart, opinionated people who are willing to get messy with a scheme or dilemma. People who knew me as an intense kid would be surprised that one of my professional skills is facilitation. I stand in front of groups, ask questions, listen to answers, value each contribution as distinct and attempt to weave the single strands of thought into a whole of new meaning. I launch the conversation and often have a destination in mind, but what happens along the way is exhilaratingly unpredictable. I don’t anticipate comments. I stay open, linking the responses together in real time. It is a process that depends on a high level of participation and interaction. If we miss a particular connection, we may lose the most coherent path. When a discussion is facilitated well, people have a sense of collective brilliance that they both own and share.

I also know that there are no new or original ideas. We carry around the same handful of cave drawings and though we may gussy them up in our own language and culture, humans are doomed to enact the same script, reinvent the same wheel, whether pulling a cart or searching a playlist. Woody Guthrie wrote far more lyrics than tunes, unapologetically recycling the same music or using music from the public domain. He did not invent newness for newness sake; he just wanted to make music as it came to him. Aside from copyright contracts, can we expect to hold on to anything we say and pronounce it unique?

Having experienced the buzz of cooperation and the acceptance of common discovery, I can intellectualize and manage my proprietor inclinations. But the sixth grader lingers. I have evolved from tantrums to a sort of citation superhero. I attribute people’s statements like a compulsive academic: who said it, when and in what context. I use the pronoun “we” more than the Queen of England. I will remember something said months later and give appropriate credit. This does not make me noble; it only means I have learned to socially channel fighting for ”mine” to protecting the “mine” of others.

Back in the meeting, I let my colleague speak and then I “layer” on a “clarifying” thought. I imagine I am deviously forcing her to at least acknowledge a previous conversation, but I know I just sound supportive. I have lost the fight by rationalizing that there was never a fight. We all work for the same company; everything we say and do should be for the greater good. My reaction is just my ego getting in the way. I decide to let it go.

I put the purple marker very slowly back into my briefcase.

I was in a play once. I was exactly my son’s age. It was a version of 12 Angry Men only we called it 12 Angry People to include girls. I was Juror #10, the bigot who rails against “those people.” It was mysterious why I was cast considering I was new to the school and stuttered. Somehow I channeled Archie Bunker enough to pass as fluent and angry. But my speech was never that effortless again. I had a tiny part in the next play, Our Town, and botched it. I could not coherently give directions to the local cemetery no matter how much I practiced. I was saved from the shepherd’s crook only because I was playing an old woman; I suspect they thought the stammer was method. But it marked the end of my career as a stage actress, and until recently, the end of my interest in live theater.

I love to watch movies. I will read all day long. But plays and musicals make me anxious. Especially when performed by amateurs. Too many things can go wrong. Forgotten lines, cracked notes, fallen backdrops, mistakes made in public, in front of an audience. All the possibilities of human error tucked inside a box, framed like a grade school diorama come to life. I anticipate the stutter stalking every word. I feel the tension that the actors must be feeling. I can’t relax because I worry for them. My vicarious leap is not for the characters but for the mortals behind the roles.

So I am nervous even when my son is not. He is his father’s son. My husband was an actor from childhood, quite accomplished in high school and college. He still performs but for this production he is behind the scenes, one of the adults in charge. The two of them have been dedicated to this project for months, hours and hours spent in rehearsal. The play is an ambitious musical with difficult arrangements and complex themes. My son is Abel of “Cain and Abel” fame. Hence the gory end that he wants to keep shrouded. He predicts that I will have an epic reaction. After all, what mother wouldn’t?

But this would assume I could let go of the curtains and the kids, that I could stop wringing my hands for my actor son in order to feel grief for Eve’s son. I would have to suspend belief in the same way I do when I try and see a 3D picture locked in a series of dots and circles. My eyes must focus differently, not on the literal, but on the emotional echo.

* * *

I am home from the musical. My son was indeed hit over the head with a rock, repeatedly, though from my angle I saw the three inches of space between his head and the prop. I plainly saw that he wasn’t hurt. Perhaps my mind would not let me believe that he could be hurt.

Although my son remained my son, there were moments when the edges of the stage did recede. I did find myself responding to a few of the performers as people within a relevant narrative outside my pragmatic world. I could let out a breath and sit back. There is something dangerous about live theater. A risk of failure eliminated by the multiple takes of film or the delete button on the computer. But when the peril looming behind a step or line does not manifest, when it all works, it is more real, more distinct than anything on page or screen. Human beings sharing a primal ritual, pretending, not pretending; finding something true in them selves that resonates true in their assumed role. I caught glimpses tonight of what my husband has always touted. I shed my role as separate, as audience, as skeptic, as neurotic and truly participated in the story.

Then, the minute Abel walked on stage, the magic flickered and my hands clenched around my program. I slipped back into mom, fretting, chewing the inside of my mouth like empathic scenery.