As our bus rolled out of Guanajuato, my mom pointed out to me a woman walking by. Her t-shirt said, “Home is where the heart is NOW” I wondered if she knew what it meant, and hoped that she did.
I’m thinking about how family makes you feel cherished, and at the same time lonely. Took my mom to the airport, and on the metro ride home felt bereft for this first time this trip. Returned to find surprise letters bundled up on my shelf, and the toothbrush I had insisted I didn’t need innocuously nestled in the cup holder. A tangible reminder that there are some gifts we cannot refuse. Reminded me of how she used to tuck love notes into my lunches and send me boxes of fresh daphne or favorite autumn leaves in college. I love that through our letters we are sharing more of our complexities, and a lot of our sadness, which goes hand in hand with our strength. There is so much we forget to say on a daily basis, we’re at times so adept at simply existing together.
The book I just finished says that to understand a woman, you must understand her beginning- her own mother and her mother’s mother. I take pride in how unique these stories make us: a young divorcee when that was no chic thing to be, turned fairy tale; a woman of epic independence who moves cross country, wants to be a mother and makes it happen; a baby girl born far too early who fits in your palm, but who is strong.
My family has become a tribe of women- one boy, who looks like our grandpa, among our ever-diminishing family. When my Aunt Sue died I remember my soul getting all twisted up. I thought we were going extinct. What is left? We’ve come together so often in the last ten years that maybe the elastic that’s supposed to jerk us into unity has gone soft, and rotted. I love my family, dead and alive, literal and created. I love too the startling moments in which I see myself perfectly reflected in them, and also those in which I realize I am completely separate.
1 comment:
Jen- I hear ya babe! Women, in particular women of the same family (especially mothers and daughters, even aunts and neices) tend to have not only a unique bond but also give each other strength. I ache for those girls who lose their mother's at a young age. That is one of the things that just killed me when traveling to Kenya and when doing my research on AIDS in South Africa: all those girls (boys too of course, but particularly the girls) who lose their mothers at a time when you really begin to realize how important she is to your life. Also, being with my mom in Jamaica and entering the home of a family where both parents have AIDS. Seeing their toddler girl crying, alone, in her home with her baby sister on the bed just broke my heart-- here are two girls who will never have that kind of bond with their mother. Okay. This is your blog not mine. =)
I love you tons. Who knows when I will see you again. By the time you return I will have departed for Peace Corps. But, you're always in my thoughts.
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