Marilyn-isms

My 88 year-old mother jokes that “the wheels are coming off” when she loses track during one of our conversations.

If I draw a blank, she comes back with: “You’ve got my disease.”

Mom’s pretty with it, but her quick wit and spot-on sayings have subsided.  It hasn’t been overnight, more gradual, little by little.

It’s these bits of no-nonsense that I was raised on. Her sayings are things I repeat. One-liners, like sound bites that give the perfect description.

These Marilyn-isms shape how I speak. How I think. When I'm dreading something, I think..."I'd rather have a root canal."  Or, when I'm excited..."I'm higher than a B-19!"

“I feel like ten miles of unpaved road,” I say when I’m tired. “Like a long alley without an ash can.”

“What?” is the usual response.

My husband, Hank, says I assume people understand what I mean when I throw out one of Mom’s one-liners. “I mean, Heath. Not a lot of people would describe someone as 'dirty bra strap.'”

Often, Hank is my translator.  “What she really means is…”

I once made a list of these sayings with a friend while sitting in an airport in Germany on a work trip. It was her idea. I was a nervous flyer back then and she was trying to distract me.  It worked. And, she got me to a hundred and eight “Marilyn-isms” before my flight was even called. I’d written the list on the back page of a paperback book. Now, the list is tucked away like a valuable gem between two books on the shelf in the guestroom.

On good days, when Mom’s more like her old self, she never misses a beat and her quirky wise sayings come at me rapid fire, seeming to encapsulate my long-winded story in just a few words. On these days, I listen hard, and type them into “notes” on my smartphone to catch and preserve.

Somehow, despite her age, Mom’s Parkinson’s, and her sporadic forgetfulness, she’s still “Marilyn.” Even now, nothing gets past her. As smart as “a tree full of owls,” Mom always seems to know who’s “in a thing.”  Who “needs a fix.”  And, who’s got a “burr up their a**.” 

When I complain about something, she tells me to “stop picking the fly s**t out of the pepper.” And, to “stop worrying. It’s prayer in reverse, you know.”

“Be patient,” she says to me. “It’s a virtue. Try it if you can. You’ll find it in a lady and seldom in a man.”

“Mom! You're saying that men aren’t patient.”

“Well,” she replies. “Consider the source.”