When My Mother Did Her Nails

I used to think my mom was crazy the way she’d wait ‘til we were in the car on our way someplace to put on her nail polish She never wore it otherwise. Then she’d light up a cigarette and there's my memory of that old ribbon of highway: the car windows closed, the smell of cigarette smoke and nail polish, and us trundling along in the slow lane for one solid hour.

Didn’t she know it would smudge? I used to wonder. Why apply nail polish just then? Or when the party was at our house why put on nail polish ten minutes before the guests  arrived?

I could never figure it out but there she' be in her usual spot at the kitchen table with the nail file tucked just under the toaster tray and the bottles of polish crowded in close by her ashtray.

And she was no kind of fancy lady. If you noticed her hands at all you only noticed they were strong - so strong she could wring out a facecloth in a way that made you sorry for the facecloth.

She never dated after her marriage more or less evanesced 18 months in, so she wasn’t doing it for a man. And God knows we kids never gave her a compliment; we were too busy holed up in the attic talking Premature Burial.

So why?

I didn’t understand until last night that she did it for herself, when I, no fancy lady either, started putting on nail polish half asleep, in the bed, at ten minutes past midnight.

Mine was called Mirage as against her Cherries in the Snow; and there was no cigarette smoke involved as far as I can recall.  But I fell asleep five minutes after I applied it so rise today to find nails looking like ten tiny waffles with the imprint of the sheets.

I don’t care. I did it for me in the last eight minutes of waking and it made me feel great - so great I'm smiling big - and lookin’ around right now for a couple of facecloths of my own  to strangle. So once again thanks Mom in your old 1950s car for helping me all the way from Heaven to keep on truckin'!