When my mother was a junior in high school, she became head majorette of Warren Township’s marching band. At the first football game, she confidently led the band onto the field for the usual program of patriotic music, and confidently led them back off again. As they marched past the bleachers towards the parking lot, the other majorettes behind my mother whisper-shouted that she’d made a mistake, that she’d led the band off the field too soon, before they’d performed the National Anthem. Without a hitch in her high step, my mother just kept marching, steering the band through a giant u-turn in the parking lot and back onto the field for the anthem.

I write about this teenage u-turn because she makes them as an adult too.

When my husband and I excitedly broke the news to her that we’d bought a farm, she wasn’t exactly happy. I imagine her reaction would have been the same if I’d told her we were expecting a fifth child. Incredulity. Bafflement. Concern.

She grew up on a farm. She knew that it was endless toil in the muck and dirt. I think she feared it would kill me. That I’m too old for this. “What on earth were you thinking,” was a common utterance.

But nine months into our work here, and she’s pulled that u-turn, with a whole flock of chickens marching behind. She loves this place. She revels in the changes we’re making. She told me she would willingly live in the chicken coop for Pete’s sake.

Last July, she brought her high school friends for an afternoon. She squired her three sisters around the place in August. In October, despite an unexpected snowstorm, she insisted my father bring his brother and sister here for a cozy dinner. Last December, she played in the glass house, making a Christmas wreath and picking red peppers. And I think it’s torturing her to miss springtime in Wisconsin.

She is flexible. my mother, like a bandaid on a finger, holding on, but not too tightly, adjusting to the circumstances, and not bothering about getting crinkly. That’s a bad metaphor, actually, because who isn’t annoyed by a bandaid on a finger.

She is elastic, my mother, like a pair of lululemon yoga pants, durable, adapting to any form and activity, stylish, and no matter how dirty, ready for another day on the farm.

That’s a lame-o metaphor too for what I consider one of her shining traits. I can’t quite put into words how much I admire her ability to adapt, her willingness to point her steering wheel in a new direction.

I know that as soon as it’s safe to do so, as soon as the all-clear is sounded, she will don her animal-print rubber boots, climb into her car, and drive up here to help with the colossal weeding that awaits her. After she’s picked a bushel or two of garlic mustard, she might need a nap. So I’ll move the wicker chaise to a shady spot in the chicken yard, and my mother, the original farm girl will have no trouble falling asleep.

Photo of drum majorette via the Library of Congress.