Mother's Ingenious Compromise

One of the underlying themes of Church School Blues is the conflict between Jade and her mother.  Her mother is very concerned with external appearances and rising socially, while Jade prefers the rustic ways she learned from her grandfather.  "I see crumbling elegance where Mother sees shabbiness, I hear music where she hears noise."

Sometimes, Mother comes through in the narrative with an "Ingenious Compromise" that allows her to keep things picture perfect while allowing Jade some of the rustic things she craves.  In chapter one, as they prepare to leave the swamp country for a new life in the city, Jade is allowed to take with her a piece of driftwood she had found on the wild shores of Lake Waccamaw:

"I get to bring a few treasures with me to Chattanooga. My bicycle is of practical use as it will be my ride to school there just as it is here. More frivolous is the inclusion of a large piece of driftwood that I triumphantly dragged home from the shore of Lake Waccamaw a year ago. Mother thought it was a horrid rustic piece, but rather than make me get rid of it, she came up with one of her Ingenious Compromises. You never know with her. Her way almost always rules because she is the adult and has all the votes while I am supposed to grow up before I have the right to vote. But sometimes she comes up with an Ingenious Compromise that blows me plum off my feet.

While I was at school, she varnished and shellacked my driftwood until the wood grains shone with as much luxury and depth as the mahogany woodwork of her stereo cabinet, which is also loaded into the U-Haul. I was appalled to see my driftwood thus transformed, but I have come to see that she has created a conversation piece. I have yet to see another one like it."

I still have the driftwood, still with some of the shine that Mother added to it.  Trying to decide if it needs a new coat...

Church School Blues will be available on Amazon.com this week!