My Mom’s Orange Bikini

Despite all of the craziness of my mom's life, there was always humor and the blood of Jesus to make things right.

Dec 15, 2024

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TODAY IS MY MOM’S BIRTHDAY. She died a couple of years ago at 92. Which, in her mind at the time, was way too early to be exiting the planet. As she told me, three months or so before she died, she intended to live until she was 125 years old.

As with my mom, I was of two minds when she revealed her prediction. Part of me understood the prophecy’s origin, while another take—that part of each of us enamored with our moms—was charmed by her hopefulness. Suddenly, I was five years old again, listening to my mom explain her creeds.

I asked her, “Well, that’s encouraging, but where do you get this feeling from? How do you know?” To which she responded, “The Lord told me.” Of course, that declaration didn’t surprise me. I was familiar with her history with ‘born again’ Christianity, which, for my mom, being a Sagittarius meant being privy, regularly, to prayerful communication with higher powers.

Although there was a macabre part of this affiliation, namely, towards the end of her life, everything—whether a dilemma or a troubled person—was covered in the ‘blood of Christ.’ Somehow, this hemoglophic baptism provided succor and transcendence. Whenever I’d receive mail from her, the back of the envelope was marked with her handwritten ‘covered by the blood of Jesus’ spellcasting.

My childhood was steeped in her various outer-dimensional belief systems. Be it visiting psychics (usually related to distressing romantic issues), reading astrology magazines (to find out more about her husband’s character), or toying with Ouija boards (to see if such and such a boyfriend was ever going to leave his wife).

But more miraculous—given the radical events in her life (the suicide of my brother being the most wrenching)—was her undaunted optimism, which always rose triumphantly. (Her Sun was trine her Mars in Leo). This joie de vivre always mystified me. Being someone with Moon and Saturn in Scorpio—one must revel in the dark side of a trial to arrive at whatever ‘meaning’ a calamity harbored in seed form.

It wasn’t until she had endured six divorces that my mom decided that the ultimate husband would be somebody who would never disengage her, which, of course, was Jesus and his dad.

So, the bikini part of this article?

For me, that bikini, or more specifically, the photo of my mom in an orange bikini that everyone in the family was reminded of because she’d placed it, framed in the living room, to remind her (and us) of her achievement—which was losing enough weight to slip into the bathing suit—became talismanic and legendary. My mom was almost six feet tall, with two-mile-long legs, and as a double Libra (Moon and Rising), she had the beauty and charm associated with that sign. And I often think of that photo because, well, it symbolized something primal about gay sons and their moms.

As I wrote right after she died, “Her overriding charm and physical beauty overwhelmed me as a kid. Parents are already larger-than-life totems in our lives, but when they possess physical beauty, a weird glamor interferes with how the parent/child dynamic registers. You come to think that all life should be about beauty…”

Studying my mom's horoscope over the years was the strongest confirmation of astrology’s veracity. From my novice days with the art to the moment I woke up this morning, remembering that it was her birthday, I see the blueprint of my mom’s chart in everything I experienced and recalled from my childhood, as well as in what I witnessed towards the end of her life.

Again, we are intimately entwined with our parents in ways that we can never escape—even if we can’t stand them. In fact, hatred or ambivalence about a parent is even more bonding because it’s infused with forces that run counter to how biology hardwires our survival instinct to bond with our caregivers. And that becomes a knot that might take a lifetime to untangle.

As I tell my students, skip delving into your chart at the start and rummage through the mandala of your parents’ horoscopes. Why? Because once you get a lay of the land of your parents’ charts, you’ll notice undeniable signatures that cross-reference into your own chart.

You’ll see how you’re cosmically interwoven with the souls that made huge sacrifices by giving you life. Whenever I see a pregnant woman who is in her final trimester, I can’t shake from my imagination what must be the mindblowing experience of carrying a growing human inside her belly. OMG.

I’d love to know what happened to that orange bikini photo. But in keeping with my mom’s Venus in Scorpio in her second house, after she died, all of her possessions went up in flames. Not literally, but the mobile home my mom occupied with my brother had to be sold quickly, and my brother had no means to salvage all of the accouterments of my mom’s life. Even her ashes from the mortuary went into the void, having been stolen from the trunk of my brother’s car one afternoon—which is a tale for another day. (My mom would have reveled in this part of her non-legacy).

I’m someone (I guess true to my Scorpionic nature) who dislikes gewgaws and nostalgic effluvia associated with one’s life—especially my own. I don’t know why, but most old photos creep me out. And so I asked for nothing to be transported up here to me in Washington.

I remember my friend, Bart, years ago, on a Thanksgiving afternoon, asking his niece and nephew which of them—when he died—would want to inherit his trunk full of pictures, diaries, and mementos. Both teenagers looked at each other and said, “Not me.”

Still, I wish I’d salvaged that bikini photo. More than a keen reminder, it would have made me smile. That was the mysterious part of my mom that I loved most—her beauty and tenacious spirit—intermixed with her oddball kookiness and her ability to believe in things most folks consider irrational or beyond belief. Despite all of the craziness of her life, there was always humor and the blood of Jesus to make things right.

Love,

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My Mom’s Orange Bikini

Despite all of the craziness of my mom's life, there was always humor and the blood of Jesus to make things right.

Opening photograph of my mom and me taken by my dad c. 1958

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