Sunday, May 9, 2010

stayed home for Mother's Day

Mother’s Day today. I decided to indulge myself and stay in my own home and celebrate myself today. I am trying to keep at bay the guilt about not travelling to my own mother’s town to take her out to an expensive lunch. I will actually see her in less than two weeks, when I will drive to her town and bring her back to ours for a few days to see the kids and watch one of them in a sports event. She does not like to drive and will not make the trip herself, so has rarely seen my kids doing any of the things that kids want their grandmothers to see them do. So, since I was the black sheep who made the choice to move a few hours away from the homestead, I will make the double drive and retrieve her to stay in the guest room (we actually have one now!) and drive her back over the weekend. Maybe I’ll even take her out for an expensive lunch.


But today I am celebrating my own motherhood. I have already been treated to breakfast in bed. Seriously! I think this is the first time I have ever had that. My son planned it, and he helped my husband cook it, and teen daughter got up early to tape a handmade sign on the bathroom mirror. But we realized that the problem with having breakfast in bed is that you cannot eat with your family. Either they sit and watch you eat while their breakfast waits and gets cold, or they eat first while yours gets cold. And so, being a practical women, I gave hugs and gushed thank-you’s all around and sent them back downstairs to eat while I stayed in bed with my lovely tray complete with fresh flowers.



I am never still in my bed during this time of day with the blinds open and the morning sun coming through the windows, and I looked around my bedroom and enjoyed the pale seafoam color of the walls against the green of the spring leaves outdoors. And then suddenly a rare beam of sunlight made its way through the windy May clouds and lit up the room. And I glanced up and noticed our peach tree, whose topmost branches reach up to these second floor windows. And as I looked, I noticed peaches! Cute little, soft as baby’s ears peaches barely an inch long. I swear those were peach blossoms only a couple of weeks ago—could it really have been a month already since Easter when an early spring heatwave set the blooming trees ablaze with pink and peach and pure white? Imagine, in a few months I’ll be able to reach outside my bedroom window and pick a ripe peach. Seriously—who wouldn’t have wanted to buy this house?



So I indulge in the perfection of the rich black coffee, and the sour sweet taste of the warm lingonberry popover and the luscious combination of strawberries and cream while I hear my family eating downstairs, low voices talking, and forks clinking against plates. I begin to mentally map out the day. I love them dearly but what I really want from them is not gifts, not presents to open, just a bit of help so that I may enjoy some peace and solitude that allows my mind to create. I plan out some chores that they can accomplish without my supervision, so that maybe for a couple of hours, I will be able to unlock the non-Mom side of my brain, and try to dream, and think, and create. To listen to the scary wild storm winds brewing outside, to soak in the seafoam of bedroom walls, to regain some balance from the helter skelter of daily mom-hood and become just me for while, so that I have a better chance of . . .





keeping a grip, Deb


P4WN5R4WVTG8

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