Babalu!

On those days when I've temporarily forgotten the whole point of Sponge Brain Stretch Pant's pre-retirement project, I play a little game called I Know Whether I'll Like This Class Before I Even Take It.  So far, my most prominent talent is being wrong about the answer every single time.

"Women of the Drum" is a perfect example.  I took this class with my mother, of all people - the woman whose child-raising job description included warning us to stop drumming on the table.  Stop drumming on the side of the bathtub.  Stop drumming on your sister.

Except that my mother never issued those warnings.

Tattling was a different story, but I've yet to hear of a Professional Snitch class.  I could have taught graduate level courses on the subject by the time I could string three words together, and when my parents begged me not to spill the beans about my sister Jenny's birthday present?  I invented charades.  They should have known better than to suggest I keep that secret when it was the actual birthday girl with whom I shared everything - including a bed.  (Silent bed charades in total darkness is quite the challenge, but Jenny eventually caught my drift about the Pla-Doh.)

Neither Mom nor I had received musical instruction as adults, so we had one major worry regarding our drum session:  free-range laughter.  You know the kind - it happens without fail while visiting a friend's church on Christmas Eve when one of the choir angels belts out a failed operatic note that you did not see coming.

We rehearsed not looking at each other in the car on the way to class, but it didn't work; we peeked repeatedly to see if the other one was looking.  I never knew the scope of my peripheral vision until I noticed Mom's silent-shoulder-shaking without deviating my eyes from ten and two.

The class description said to call the leader if we needed to borrow a djembe drum.  I ran to the dictionary and found djembe's proper pronunciation - next to a drawing of a thing I'd never seen in my home.

I do remember a set of bongos my brother Randy had when we were little.  I used to hold them between my knees and "play" them while walking from room to room.  But walking and doing anything as a child was just one of my special deficits, so my performances (often thinly disguised efforts at diverting Mom's attention from the fact that it was bath night) incorporated random solo bursts on one or both kneecaps.

We called the leader and she loaned us what turned out to be two of the biggest drums I'd ever seen.

Honestly.

They were like those things I Love Lucy's husband played at the Coconut Club - or wherever his TV band entertained millions of 1950s housewives who wished they lived in Cuba.

Djembe translates to "come together in peace."  We wrapped our legs around the bases to keep them from turning on us in case they sensed we had not Googled their translation beforehand.  Now Mom and I had a much bigger worry than cracking each other up in front of women who had been gathering in peace for more than a decade:  we were one ill-timed leg cramp away from dropping someone's ancient ritual on its tautly stretched goatskin head.

We learned a Haitian spring planting song that required each half of the circle to play separate parts.  Our leader showed more patience than Ricky Ricardo mustered during Lucy's entire pregnancy.  Every few seconds, a couple of extremely loud beats lined up and, while I've never been to Haiti, I felt confident our version sounded like the real thing.  I expected little spring sprouts to appear near my tightly curled toes.

I could eventually close my eyes for several seconds without tipping over, and my own heartbeat synchronized with that of my drum.  Probably the Haitian section of my heart I never met while growing up, so preoccupied was I with getting away from those pesky mountains and sequestering myself in the 'civilized' land of glass and concrete.

As the last of the sounds died down, the drummers said other newcomers hadn't kept up as well as we did.  Shocked at the compliment, I threw Mom and myself under the talent bus by raving about how little artistic, athletic, and musical ability either of us had ever possessed.  Really!  I practically screamed.  We're AWFUL!

Mom just smiled and nodded.  She's been out of Reprimand Mode for a while, but should have told me to speak for myself.  She should have put her hands back on that drum and composed an impromptu I Can't Hear You song.

Her new song would remind me about the years of dinners she'd orchestrated, every night for seven people, after working all day.  It would reveal how she'd channeled her inner Band Leader - refusing to bolt during a nightclub fire as long as dancers remained on the floor - every time I practiced my clarinet in fourth grade.  I still recall a smorgasbord of flat notes screeching from that horn as I tapped one foot against the linoleum and tried to ignore the spit dripping off the bell.

Yuck.

It would not have been any better if I'd had a real drum as a child.  I believe djembe is something you grow into - lifting your life lines way up in the air and pounding them down with abandon.  Frustration?  Gone.  Tension?  Goodbye.

My mother should have had her own djembe years ago to drown out the teasing, the tattling, and especially the clarinet.  It would have been so worth it to skip dinner occasionally in favor of a Wyoming spring planting song.

That's it!

While I don't know enough about these drums to recommend them as a full-time post-career choice, I can say that hearts pounding in rhythm makes an excellent (not-so-secret) birthday present for somebody you really love.

Happy 84th, Mom.

(Ever wonder about special ingredients in a really good scone?   They will be revealed right here next Friday.  Please don't say I didn't warn you.)