The Thrill is Gone

Every Wednesday morning when I was a child my mother would take my brother and I to a bowling alley. She had her own ball and shoes back then and we looked forward to the opening of the hall closet and her dragging that black swollen case to the trunk of our Buick.

I don’t know what about those mornings appealed to us…maybe it was a break in the menu of grilled cheese sandwiches and afternoon naps, but all I know is somehow those dark, dreary lanes and all that swirling smoke felt deliriously mocking of their motherly roles. There was the smell of frozen meat thawing and French fries in greasy binds, socks unleashed and body odors that I remember wondering what area they may have first found origin. Lane after lane of broken hangdog housewives seemed like a social movement gone awry…like entering a bar on a bright sunny day and seeing the same usual suspects at the counter…their eyes unaccustomed to the light quickly giving way to a susceptible glimpse of their descendible self.

Of course I didn’t realize this at the time. Back then I didn’t give much thought to the plight of women or finding a prestigious highbrow benchmark for daily household duties. I just loved the release and roll of the ball…the sound of it gliding down the lane…the excitement building…and then the force of impact.  We would raise our arms in the air precisely at the time the hard rubber hit the pins and sent those little wooden soldiers flying. I remember how my brother and I would hold our breath, wait for the crash, followed by the scratch of the pencil on the scorecard. We would watch in amazement as the machine pulled back the downed pins and pushed my mom’s black ball back up the spinning belt once again.

Skill never played a factor for us. We didn’t even realize this was a sport. For us, it was just a mid-week event that broke up the monotony of childhood. A day in which we learned to appreciate bowling as if an art form – the drop of the cigarette into an ashtray, blowing on the fingertips before putting those dried digits into dark holes, feet planted on the hardwood grain, the ball cradled in a palmed prayer, the backward swing and toss. I remember being proud of my mom…how she wore a hat on her head that looked like a salad plate and was able to keep it planted firmly there with bobby pins. For our mundane lives of coloring and building blocks, it felt explosive. We had no idea it was something our mother did to occupy her time so that she didn’t lose her mind.

Today things are so different. Back then, feelings seemed as containable as those lanes. Even when drama occurred, they were able to rein it in and hold it at close range…or at the very least, in secret. I watched my mother’s boredom and that dreadful cartoon bubble seemed to loom over, “Help, I’m a woman and I’m stuck in my role.” Somehow my mom was able to learn to stifle the knowledge that she had more to offer, knowing and fearing that it would remain smothered in motherhood and chores. For years she seemed to hang on and then it was over…the dream escaped. I’m not saying she hasn’t found her share of happiness…but happiness is surely not the same thing as the fulfillment of being fully used to your capacity. She envied those in business who worked their way up...those who parlayed their talents to a corner office.

Nowadays, I can only guess very few mothers hit the lanes with regularity. I have only been to a bowling alley half a dozen times since childhood. There are some things that are better left to memory.