For a good part of my childhood, when asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I would respond, "an author." I loved reading and almost finished my Sweet Valley High book on the way home from the library. I read the Little House on the Prairie series too many times to count and I would often go to the bathroom after being put to bed as an excuse to read for another half-hour.
Things changed as I grew up and my interests became more centered around music, but I've always loved reading and writing.
Especially lately. Writing makes me feel good. A different good than singing, it satisfies me in a completely unique way. Through reading other people's blogs and some random google searches, I came across Anne Lamott's name and just yesterday picked up her book on writing, bird by bird.
I found myself nodding throughout the introduction and feeling as if I'd been given a priceless gift. Why on earth did it take me so long to find her?
A couple things jumped off the page and hit me in the face. Here are a few of them:
"good writing is about telling the truth."
"Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up."
"I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have more fun while they're doing it."
I've only just started reading, but Ms. Lamott's words have inspired me to write and be intentional about it. And I think, besides the fact she's brilliant and funny and gifted with words, I just like her because she's from the Bay Area and I'm desperately homesick for CA.
Anyway, Ms. Lamott encourages writers to do short assignments for a number of reasons, none of which I'll go into here, (you'll just have to read her book!) and I've decided to take on the challenge.
So, since it's Mother's Day, I thought I'd do my first short assignment with my mother as a subject.
There are many things I could write about my mother. I could write about how the scent of Oil of Olay face lotion instantly transports me to childhood bedtimes. Or how she makes the most amazing dinner rolls and at Thanksgiving and Christmas I would eat as many as I could get my hands on, leaving no room for turkey or stuffing. Or how she's passed on to me her love of dance and celebration of what the human body can do. And her love of coffee and peanut butter. Or how the childhood she gave my siblings and me has helped shape us into thinking, creative people.
Instead I want to share a memory that came to me in a flash today as I was headed home from the gym.
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It was early evening and the outside light was further muted as it made its way through the tall, narrow stained glass windows in the church. The light cast a yellow tint to the already orange hued pews causing time to stand still as if we were in a faded polaroid.
It must have been late summer or early fall because it was warm and there was a slight layer of perspiration all over my body. The pastor was talking and had been for awhile to the small congregation, the especially devout who came to church twice on a Sunday.
I sat in the front pew next to my mom, her feet adorned in familiar black organ shoes. There was a hymnal on her lap upon which sat a scrap of paper where she had jotted down a few notes, phrases from the sermon, a bible passage. At the top corner was also a little doodle, something I found fascinating. I don't remember specifically what it was, just a a series of curves and swoops in my mom's distinct, to me, handwriting. Did my mom get bored too?
On my other side was a friend, who had fallen asleep across her mother's lap.
Slowly I managed to replace the hymnal on my mother's lap with my head. I'm sure I was too big for this sort of thing, but it was warm in the church and the light was hypnotic. Absentmindedly my mom began to stroke my hair, just at the baby soft spot, right next to the forehead near the temple.
Stroke, stroke, stroke.
It was the most heavenly feeling. Maybe if I kept as still as possible she wouldn't stop. For once I didn't care how long the sermon went on, I wasn't bored, just propelled into the present moment, and anchored there by my mother's hand.
All too soon, the pastor began to close in prayer and my mom gently lifted my head up as she stealthily made her way to the organ to play the last hymn.
In that moment, we fit together effortlessly, able to ask for, give, and receive love in a way that made sense to both. What a gift that memory is to me.
I now know with my heart, not just my head, that being a mom isn't easy. But I also know that it has made me a better person and so worth every difficulty.
So you're welcome mom, for making you a better person. Haha! Just kidding!
Seriously though, there aren't enough words or sentences or short writing assignments to express the depth of love and gratitude I have for you and the mom you've been. So, take this memory, which is yours now as well, and pull it out when you need to be reminded of what a bang up job you've done.
Happiest of Mother's Days mom.
