This morning I got up and went to the kitchen to feed my dog and I turned on the tiny TV that sits on the highest shelf in the closet behind the dog’s dishes. That’s the routine. And today, as I often have, I thought about my Mother who’d given me the little tv so long ago. I was surprised when I opened this Christmas present and remember thinking, “Where am I going to put this, it’s too small to watch all the time.” Mom leaned over the couch and whispered in my ear, “Everyone needs a tv in the kitchen.”
I don’t know about that, I don’t spend much time in the kitchen. But, back in New York I put it in the closet that’s always open, turned it on and put it on Turner Classic and never changed the channel. Every morning I turn it on, lower the sound until it’s barely audible and go about my day.
Then, at night just before bed, I go in there and turn off the flickering nightlight that illuminates the kitchen. Of all the memories, every day when I turn on that little tv I remember my Mother and how she used to wake me up late at night when I was a little girl and promise that I could stay home from school the next day if I’d only get up and watch an old movie with her.
Groggy, I’d get up on the couch and pull the afghan around me and she’d begin to explain what had happened in the movie so far and who was who. If we came upon a movie she didn’t know, she’d call the station (you could do that in those days) and they’d tell her who killed who, and no, that’s not Walter Huston, it’s Wallace Beery. They seemed to have nothing better to do that chat with my Mother, bringing her up to date on the underworld activities of all of her favorite actors. James Cagney, George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, E. G. Robinson amongst them. Sometimes she’d gesture for me to sit on the floor between her legs so she could braid my hair or, and I really hated this, put brush curlers in, at least one of which we’d have to cut out the next morning.
There was always a running commentary from her those nights. “That’s Bette Davis.” She’d say “And, believe me…she is up to no good! Honey, go get your ole Mother a beer.” We’d both cringe and talk to the actors like they were in the room with us. “No! Don’t go in there! He’s got a gun!” We both had a crush on Gregory Peck. My Mother would reach over and squeeze my foot. “He’s a man of integrity.”
Mom was a nightowl. And, I became one, too.
It’s sad today, the day of Whitney Houston’s funeral. And when I went to turn on the tv this morning and the familiar b&w forms began to take shape on the screen, I thought of Mom who died 7 years ago today and how I missed her so much sometimes and that the last time I’d seen her was at the funeral home where I snipped a lock of her red hair and tucked it into my wallet.
Mom gave me that tv least 18 years ago especially so I’d have something “homey” in the big, bad city. Those b&w characters moving around just out the corner of my eye while microwaving something or cleaning… oddly comforted me more than practically anything I can think of. Even now, late at night if I can’t sleep, I turn on one of those movies and congratulate myself on knowing every single one of those actors, the plots, the directors…
I’d been less than thrilled to tote that little tv back to the city from Virginia. And now, after all these years of it being the “other” in the room, after all this time when those b&w actors and their faint dialogue soothed me through all the ups and downs of life, I realize that this tv has been a port in the storm, a familiar friend in a room full of strangers. If my Mother heard me say this, I think she’d smile and say she was glad I got so much out of this little luxury everyone should have.
I am just now beginning to understand my Icelandic Mother but we shared this love of old movies and she was right. Everyone should have a little tv in the kitchen.
