As I mentioned, the juice-making process is a bitch. I listen to music as I juice and average at least a whole album during the prep to cleanup process.
One of my favorite albums to listen to these days is the Nina Hagen gospel album. It is truly brilliant. The recurring theme of the album is Jesus. It includes everything from a cover of Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus to old school gospel songs. It's a total reinvention of the Nina I fell in love with back in the 80's. The mere fact that I'm singing to gospel would make my mom proud.
Whenever my mom would come visit, she would read her bible and pray for at least an hour before bed. She'd also bother me to take her to church to which I would always decline. One year, when I lived in Venice, I offered to take her to this cute little church within walking distance from my apartment. I knew what kind of church it was but I wanted to see how my mom would respond.
It was an all-black church and my mom and I were the only white people there. The women immediately took a liking to my mom and before the sermon they exchanged stories about Jesus and just how fucking merciful he is. They offered us all kinds of food including grits and biscuits. My mom indulged. I, however, was in a total vanity phase at the time so I declined. I think the ladies were offended by that.
During the pre-sermon worship, one of the ladies came down to our row, took my mom by the hand and invited her to dance and sing with the choir. The image of my mom in that all-black church, swaying and singing with her arms up in the air in a tribute to Jesus is forever burned in my memory. It was a true Kodak moment...and one that brought tears to my eyes.
I'm not a fan of organized religion but these people made church entertaining. Unlike the churches I had previously been to with my mom, this one was stripped of any pretension regarding faith. These people were the real deal. And watching my mom with those women really helped me see her in a different light.
My mom had to switch churches in Florida a few times because she couldn't take the mindset of the people and sometimes felt ostracized. People judged her because she wasn't a white-bred housewife with perfect doll-like white-bred children.
I'll never forget going with her to church once when I was a teenager and hearing someone refer to my mom as Cuban. I interjected and said, "My mom isn't Cuban, she's from Ecuador". And the lady said something along the lines of them being right next to each other. I made it a point of educating her on the geographical location of Cuba in respect to Ecuador. My mom was well-educated and cultured and I couldn't understand why she would surround herself with these people.
I hated that world.
No comments:
Post a Comment