Look Mom, Bare Hands

It is official.

I have turned into my mother.

Not because  I often repeat her mantra, “we are so blessed”. Or because I nap on the couch after a hard day’s work as she did. It isn’t because we share a love for personal planners, weekly menus taped to the cupboard, or house cleaning on Saturdays.

It is because I have finally mastered the task that seemed the most fantastical, most out of reach as a child; the task that inspired the most awe and wonder in my young mind. My mother could open the oven door and remove baked potatoes with her bare hands. No mitt. No tongs. No fork. Just her bare hands. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t have been more impressed if she had hoisted the family car above her head. I wondered, “Will I ever grow heat-proof skin?”

Fast forward a few decades. I am standing in front of my own oven to remove potatoes that have just finished baking. The oven mitt is missing from the drawer. I wonder…dare I try it?

The adult in me reasons — it’s only a 350 degree oven…the wrinkly skins of the potatoes prevent full contact with my fingertips…the countertop is less than half a second away. And so I grab and lob one potato after another onto the counter.

Though my adult mind understands how such a feat was accomplished, I find myself transported back to the kitchen of my childhood home — a child watching her mother do the impossible — and feel the circle complete itself.

I have not fully mastered every quality I admire in my mother. Though I read music better than she does, her piano skills, born of playing by ear for a swing band, makes her tunes twice as lively as mine. My pie crust is not as flakey and I am not nearly as outgoing as she is. Those traits reside in the still-working-on-it category.

But I have accomplished the last of my childhood trio of Impossible Motherhood Abilities: Pain Disappearing with a Kiss, Eyes in the Back of Your Head and the final one — Bare Handed Baked Potato Removal.

It is a good place to be. I realize there are women who have mothers that don’t inspire emulation. Fortunately, I am not one of them. I have been given one of the greatest gifts you can receive — a wonderful mother. It is a blessing that touches every facet of my life.

Thanks, Mom.