Mothering. Nursing. Complaining.

REPEAT

I’m a lousy nurse.

Just like my mother.

There were six of us.
And she was good at lots of stuff.

Like loving us.
Like thinking we were IT.
Like making us believe we were IT.
And she liked to make us “pretty.”

But that’s about it.

Mother was less gifted at the other “motherly” duties.

She didn’t “play” with us.
She didn’t cook worth shit.
She didn’t “nurse.”

And she loved to bitch.
Loved to complain.

Not with us.
But about us.
And about her husband, my dad.

Especially when we were sick and her nursing abilities were called for.

She didn’t have any nursing abilities other than:

GET. BETTER. FAST.

I know.
’Cause I received this lack of empathy.
And I overheard.

Mother hosted a weekly coffee klatch.

If you don’t know what a “kawfeeklatsch” is — let me explain.

She was a Brooklyn girl. Before Brooklyn was “cool.” Bay Ridge. Married a Bay Ridge handsome boy. Loved the borough thoroughly.

Until — she didn’t.

My mother was the boss of our house — and coerced — i.e. forced — my dad and the rest of the urban-loving pack she raised — including our beloved 77-year-old grandmother — to move to the Joisey burbs.

We hated it.

It was there — a few months in — that she started her coffee klatch — inviting a few of her new cul-de-sac pals over for a weekly bitch fest.

A hit.

It changed Mother immediately from a “what the fuck did I just do” to a happy suburban wife.

How could she leave this behind? Coney Island Days, Mother and Dad, far left

I watched carefully.
Though I was just 11, I was deeply miserable.
Where was my block?
Where were my buddies?
Where was the candy guy on the corner who sold me gooey cavity-inducing garbage?
All gone.

Where AM I?

And how did my mother transform so quickly?

What did she know that I didn’t know — yet.

COMMUNITY PEOPLE!

And the art of the bitch session — among other Broads.

My ear would be glued to the kitchen wall, trying to listen in.

Do they all hate their husbands?
Their kids?
Their “mothering” duties — particularly when their kids/husbands got the shits or the inevitable runny noses?

Or is this just… life?
Overheard early on.

If so — it stuck.

The art of nursing is just that.
An art.

And we’re not all “blessed.”

I’ve been a “nurse” for the past three months.

Fortunately, my services are no longer required.

My partner is on his way back to health.

But I can tell you — if it weren’t for a group text of broads in similar situations, I’d have lost it.
Like my dear mother would have.
She had her coffee klatch.
I had my text thread.

Oh, the conversations. Not unlike what I heard through that kitchen wall 64 years ago.

Only more graphic.

The un-sexy details of life with a sick loved one:
Peeing.
Farting.
Pooping.
How many times.
Will he/she/they ever poop again?

OMG.

Some of these broads married older.
You’re 30, he’s 55. Maybe 60.
Then suddenly you’re 50 and he’s… do the math.

You just don’t think about it when you’re young and horny and dashing. But you often turn nurse and unexpected mother in the later days.

It’s a fact not talked about enough.

But I heard it through our text angst!

If it weren’t for these fellow bitches going through it, I’d have lost it.
No doubt.

Have you seen Stephen Sondheim’s “Company?”

The song running through my head this whole time — “Sorry–Grateful.”

“You’re always sorry … you’re always grateful…”
You’re grateful you’re not alone.
You’re sorry you’re not free.

Not so different from what I heard at 11.

And not so different from what I’m obsessed with now — brilliant broads creating spaces to just… complain.

Like Glynnis MacNicol newsletter Good Decisions — inviting her readers to send in their complaints — about anything — an asshole neighbor, a bossy boss, the orange man, LinkedIn (my favorite) — just the joy of COMPLAINING with no consequences.

A hit.

Or the podcast “No Country for Old Women” with Jenn Romolini and Kimberly Harrington — oh do they love to bitch and complain. And we love it with them!

Another hit!

Maybe it’s the modern version of moving from Bay Ridge to the Joisey burbs.

Naaa. It’s more than that.

These are not normal times.

We need to be nursed into some version of mental heath.

Some folks say it’s “bad karma” to complain — I say it’s fucking survival.

A COMMUNITY OF BROADS!

I nursed my man the best I could.
Which is to say — not very well.

Fortunately, I had my coffee klatch.
My mother had hers.

Maybe that’s the inheritance.
Not the nursing.
The knowing you can’t do it alone.

He was a beautiful nurse to me when I needed it earlier this year.
Patient. Kind. Steady.

He must have had a different kind of mother.

Or —

she had her own coffee klatch.