In Praise of My Mommy:
Life is so funny; how we grow and evolve…it sounds so hoidy but change is really the only constant thing in this world and often one of the most difficult things to wrap our minds around. My relationship with my mom has changed in accordance with the aforementioned universal law, yet it was until just recently that I realized that maybe it hasn’t changed as much as I had previously posited.
When I was a little girl, my mom and I would walk into town from our beautiful yellow house at 201 Water Street. Along the way, we would pass by the various and assorted flower beds which lined the picketed yards of many of our neighbors. There was one house in particular whose fences were lined with an assortment of tulips as bright and blossoming my six year old self. My mom would bend down, cup the blossom of a tulip in her palm and pretend that it was speaking, saying beautiful and encouraging things to me, and prompting me to giggle out a response. Even though I knew it was my mom who was doing the speaking, I truly believed in the flower’s voice.
To me, my mother a vehicle through which beauty blossomed. I would watch her make art, piecing together panes of glass, or effortlessly guiding fluid and unpredictable water-colors with but a wisp of brush. She approached nature as art and art was her nature. From her I came to understand and expect the limitless possibility that creativity entails.
Yet there was a time when creativity waned, when tulips blossoms clammed up and crammed shut, when nothing seemed to flow. Was it a lack of creativity? A shift of focus from the natural to the force and pain that is a purely man made construction? I cannot be completely sure. I do know that for some time my mother lost herself and disappeared…without her, I did the same.
But not for us a wintry end, the sun is shining again and the tulips are in bloom, my mommy will coax them into connection, and I will respond again with smiles, with laughter, and even, perhaps, with tears of joy.
When I was a little girl, my mom and I would walk into town from our beautiful yellow house at 201 Water Street. Along the way, we would pass by the various and assorted flower beds which lined the picketed yards of many of our neighbors. There was one house in particular whose fences were lined with an assortment of tulips as bright and blossoming my six year old self. My mom would bend down, cup the blossom of a tulip in her palm and pretend that it was speaking, saying beautiful and encouraging things to me, and prompting me to giggle out a response. Even though I knew it was my mom who was doing the speaking, I truly believed in the flower’s voice.
To me, my mother a vehicle through which beauty blossomed. I would watch her make art, piecing together panes of glass, or effortlessly guiding fluid and unpredictable water-colors with but a wisp of brush. She approached nature as art and art was her nature. From her I came to understand and expect the limitless possibility that creativity entails.
Yet there was a time when creativity waned, when tulips blossoms clammed up and crammed shut, when nothing seemed to flow. Was it a lack of creativity? A shift of focus from the natural to the force and pain that is a purely man made construction? I cannot be completely sure. I do know that for some time my mother lost herself and disappeared…without her, I did the same.
But not for us a wintry end, the sun is shining again and the tulips are in bloom, my mommy will coax them into connection, and I will respond again with smiles, with laughter, and even, perhaps, with tears of joy.
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