My Mother’s Day bouquet
I find myself crying at strange times these days. The tears come in waves, sometimes in the shower for no apparent reason, sometimes when I’m driving if a particular song shows up on my Spotify playlist.
The news cycle batters me. I think that is what they are hoping for, whoever they are. I try to remember the things that troubled me, even a few weeks ago, but that I seem to have almost forgotten. Is Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia still in prison in El Salvador? Is anything being done to help him?
I didn’t write here last week. It was Mother’s Day weekend. I miss my Mom. I miss my kids. I am so happy for my children, that they are out in the world living their lives. I had loving phone calls with both of them, but there was no way to see them in person, which on an ordinary Sunday would not make me feel even the slightest bit of melancholy. But because it was Mother’s Day? There was a little of that. Just a touch. Unnecessary sadness, if you ask me.
Mother’s Day is a difficult holiday. I like Anne Lamott’s take on it, where she says that “Mother’s Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path. Ha! Every woman’s path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment.”
My friend has a beautiful garden; her roses are blooming magnificently this year. She picked me a Mother’s Day bouquet. They are on my kitchen table now, hovering over my computer screen. If I lean forward, I can smell their sweetness. Continue Reading…
Sometimes I have a hard time staying asleep.
