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Essays  ·  Poetry  ·  Comedy  ·  Art  ·  Video summer 2021
Mama and Her Figs

published in Fall 2006, llandry,
Searchmoo:


Essays...
· Sitting with Mama
· Maria
· Nine Crossings
· Mama and Her
    Figs

· Fallopian Chron IV
· Why I Toast, I
· Why I Toast, II
· Why I Toast, III
· Scooter/Dot-Com
· Fallopian Chron II
· Fallopian Chron III
· Strange Bedfellow
· Almost Equal
· A Difficult Day
· Phantom Lover:
    Ode to
    Leslie Cheung

· I Am Salad
· Fallopian Chron I
· Taiwanglish
· Childhood's End
· Psychic Friends
· Life in the
    Time of SARS

· Waiting for
      the Goddess

· Roswell My Eye
· Catisfaction
· My Laramie Project
· Stopping on the
    Street for
    Coltrane: A Real
    Latter Day Saint

· Whither Moocat?
· Happy Palindrome!
· Happy Tiger
· Tourist for a Day
· Geography
    as Destiny

· "Bastards"
· Watching the
    Pentagon Burn

· Communing with
    Mama


Poetry...
· Milk
· Infinity
· Emailing the Dead
· Broken Water
· Sand Shark
· Grandma Said
· Golden Days
· Americat
· Moe Howard on the
Death of His Brother,
Curly

· Flashpoems
· Minyan
· Inside Scoop
· Nativity
· I Ask My Mother
To Sing

· Absence of Colours
· Island Logic
· Peepshow Kleenex
· Allen Ginsberg
Forgives Ezra Pound
on Behalf of the Jews

· Lacing Your Shoes:
Haiku & the Everyday

· Four Haiku
· Smoking Haiku
· Geary & Jones,
Monday, 8:23 a.m.

· The Keeper
· december 13, 2001
· Memento Mori
· Football's Birthday
· The Edward Gorey
Museum

· Arrival
· Victim o'
Soikumstance

· The Origin of
Teeth and Bones

· Questions for
Understanding
Martins Ferry,
Ohio

· This Is Just
To Tell You

· Not-Cat (& whatnot)
· To My Unmet Wife

Comedy...
· Englishhua
· Dave for Pope
· Papa Loves Mambo
· MS-GOV
· A Culture Report
Sampler

· The Louisiana
Cajuns:
A Special Radio X
Historical Docudrama

· Krawkawkaw Gives
a Little

· Meet Dr. Klaww
· Letters to Dr. Klaww
· Letter from the
Hall of Justice

· An Invitation
to be Keynote
Speaker

· More
KLAWWrespondence


All Things
    Gajandra...

· Gajandra Meets
    the Scatoman

· Gajandra and
    the Curse of the
    Six Monkeys

· Gajandra and the
    Eating Lesson

· A Moment of
    Self-Doubt

· Gajandra and the
    Great Rumble

· Gajandra and the
    Problem with
    Sa-Noor


Art...
· Mohamed Tahdaini
· John Guillory
· Berkeley Pier
· Bruce Dene
· Death of The Bayou
· Taiwan Food Vendors
· John Freeman
· Robin Liu
· Hector
· Dave's Corner
· Zuni Kachinas

Videos...
· Mainland Murmurs
· Next to Heaven
  · Episode #8

  · Episode #16
· Crosswords Brunch


Submission
Guidelines


Moo archives...
· Essays
· Comedy
· Poetry
· Art
· Video
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I turned 40 recently. While I'm don't feel over the top about this milestone, it definitely is not going unnoticed by my psyche. I feel sad that I didn't get to do all the things I wanted to do as a young(er) person. Most notably, that I didn't take more risks and travel more. I find it kind of funny at 40 to be married with a baby, when, at 30, I had resigned myself to a life of singlehood, and, at 31, moved cross-country with a rather unsavory rocker. My life could have turned out so much worse. Two days before my birthday, I received some sad news about a cousin who died in a motorcycle accident. She was two months older than I and turned 40 in November of 2004. Maria and I could not have been more different. So different, in fact, that I don't think we had had more than five minutes of conversation between us since we were 14. Maria lived her life fast and hard and for a lot of the adult years, I think her existence on Earth was sad, painful, and violent. She was never the sharpest knife in the drawer and always got a tsk-tsk reaction from people who mentioned her. She got pregnant in high school and married the father, Reggie. Reggie was a long-haired, gangly man who, even at 16, looked rough and worn. They had a son. I don't know much about their lives except for family gossip, which included tales of drugs and abuse. Reggie couldn't keep a job. Even Maria's father, who hired him at his service station, couldn't keep him on. Her son, "Reggie, Jr." grew up and also dropped out of school, fathering a child at 17. Reggie, Sr., became increasingly violent and depressed. So much so, that a few years ago Maria moved out of their house - a trailer that was parked behind her parents' house - and into her parents' house. One night, after getting himself drunk, Reggie, Sr., set the trailer on fire and shot himself, giving Maria what was probably her first sense of freedom. I saw her last October. I was pregnant. She was laughing about going to clubs and flirting with young guys and freaking them out by saying she was a grandmother. She gave me her cell phone number and told me to call her to hang out. Of course, I didn't do that. Eventually, Maria found a mentor, a woman she worked with. She told Maria she needed to get away from her family. They all lived Cajun-style, in the same yard, so Maria's whole life was within a 40-arpent plot of land: her grandparents in the front house nearer the bayou and highway, her parents in the next house, her burned out trailer behind that, and even her son had moved into a little house next door. Her mentor convinced her to get out, and she did, buying a house in the slighly larger town of Houma nearby. I think she had been in her new house and in a new job for about a year. Last Thursday, she went out to a restaurant. I imagine she was probaby drinking a margarita or two. Some guy came in the bar and she was talking to him and he said he had a motorcycle and she said she'd love to go for a ride. He took her outside, gave her a helmet to wear, and the two of them set off, riding through the streets of Houma, Louisiana, on a cool, January night. They lost control in the Houma tunnel. They were both thrown from the bike. Maria was taken off life support the next morning and died. My family and friends in our small community were greatly affected by her death. I'm not sure how much was due to curiosity, how much to direct caring and a real feeling of loss, how much due to guilt or feeling helpless in not being able to rescue her, but my mom told me that St. Mary's Church in Raceland was packed for her funeral. I'm sure a mixture of all those things was in play. Maria suffered, but whenever she was around, she remained bubbly and upbeat. I'm sure many people just shook there heads behind her back, feeling sorry for her, thinking she was a bit dim, not really knowing or perhaps caring enough to reach out. Her death had come at a time when she seemed to be getting some peace, getting something for herself for a change. Even I, so far away, with honestly no connection to her anymore, felt mixed emotions of guilt, sadness, and loss for her. But, as I reached my own birthday, I had to think, it was good that she survived her husband in that way. She suffered so much abuse and difficulties in her short life, and the way some stories of abuse go, it's amazing that her husband didn't bring her down with him. I'd like to think that she was able to be a free spirit for a brief time. I'm thankful that I was able to change directions with my own life and I'm still around to savor it all. And, as my life continues to unfold, I hope that I can continue to embrace and appreciate it all. And Maria, good for you Grandma... riding motorcycles, drinking margaritas, and flirting right up until the end.

— Lynn Landry

Lynn Landry is writing again after a lot of goading, coddling, and shaming by friends. Technology has set her free as she discovered she was "born to blog." Check out her daily musings on life in Oakland, CA at Bad Mother.

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