That you wished you always had.
That statement takes on new meaning as I develop a new relationship with my mom.
I almost said with my current mom.
And that actually makes a kind of sense, she’s a different person, I am a different person, and we slowly construct a kind of relationship that neither of us have had before.
I am not real interested in reconstructing the relationship we used to have.
It did not work.
I will leave it at that.
She did the best she could.
I did the best I could.
I learned a lot of new behaviours that started to happen when I really asked for, and received some help. I have had a lot of recovery in this area, I have done a fuck ton of inventory, gone to therapists, psychiatrists and counselors.
I have worked through a lot of the collateral damage.
But sometimes, I still will have my feelings about it and I found myself crying for no particular reason after I got off the phone with my mom this afternoon.
It’s Mother’s Day, that’s what you do, you call the mom.
I had to eat breakfast, pray, meditate, and write before doing it.
And the phone call only lasted six and a half minutes.
I think mom might have been talking for a while, but we had gotten disconnected.
I waited a few minutes, chuckling, thinking she must be chatting away over there in Florida, filling me in on all the doings of her partners daughter.
Like I care.
But, I listen.
I picked up the phone when she rang back and listened to her talk.
That’s probably the best gift I can give her, listening to her.
I don’t need to ask for or rely on my mom for anything.
I never really did, even when I should have been as a kid.
However, for years after I became an adult, I continued to look to my mom for emotional and financial support.
I never really expected it, but I would hope for it, I would long for it, I would go to the very dry well and expect a big bucket of cold, refreshing spring water to slake my thirst for all things mom.
So today, I did the best thing that I could do for myself, I took care of myself like I wished my mom could have when I was younger.
I made myself soup.
I sat outside in the sun.
I went for a bike ride.
I cleaned the house.
I read my book.
I balanced my checkbook, paid my phone bill, dropped the check in the mail to my friend for the Lighting in a Bottle Memorial Day weekend camping trip.
I did all things mom like and responsible.
Then I had a realization.
And perhaps it is like marrying yourself, I don’t know, but I have bought things for the little girl in me when she has needed them–pajamas, stuffed bunny rabbits (all since donated and gifted away to little girls I used to nanny) hair clips, stickers, etc.
I have gotten things for the teenager in my psyche too–lipstick, trips to Sephora, bottles of Essie nail polish, magazines–she like W and Vogue–but I have never, until today, thought about getting something for the mom in me.
I am pretty maternal when it gets right down to it.
I was my own mom, my mom’s mother at times, my sister’s mother at times, I am a care taker, especially in my first long-term relationship, I was definitely the mom to the man I was dating.
How then should I celebrate myself and do for myself a nice little thing–acknowledge that the mom in me needs a Mother’s Day gift too.
I mean, who doesn’t like getting presents?
So, I took myself to Sloat Garden Center here in the Outer Sunset and I got myself a hanging plant.
A spider plant, to be specific.
I love the green.
I used to have one in my bedroom in the house I grew up in, Windsor, Wisconsin, a land very, very, very, far, far away.
I like them.
They do something for me.
Don’t care to analyze it, but I have had one in a number of the more stable housing situations I have been in.
There’s something about it that puts the final stamp of approval on my place for me.
I got a black metal hanging bracket, screwed it into the wall, threaded the hanger (bought a cloth one in blue with pink roses–yeah, hey, it’s got to have a little mom feel to it you know), and hung up the plant.
It makes me absurdly happy when I look at it.
Again, I don’t know why, but it does.
There’s something fulfilling about having green plants in my home.
In fact, I distrust people who don’t have plants, they’re homes always make me nervous.
There’s something nurturing about having plants in the home, flowers are sweet and I love them too, but just a good healthy green plant, thriving in some sunshine, makes my little space open up and grow too.
It is therapeutic to look at greenery.
It soothes me soul, it does.
Going out to Sloat Garden Center also helped me to get back on the scooter.
I checked it out and pretty much found it to be doable, I wanted to ride it to my evening commitment at Church and Market tonight, and figured a trial run was needed.
The Garden Center was a perfect little jaunt.
It’s at 46th and Sloat.
I am at 46th and Judah.
Just a few blocks to go, then a nice meander through the green house, the flowers, the geraniums and Gerber Daisies, the orchids, slender and beguiling with lush yellow purple sunbursts of petals, the African Violets and baskets of begonias and bouganvilla.
I wanted the spider plant, though, and that’s what I got.
It rode back with me, tied down to the back seat.
I got my scooter legs again and took it to Church and Market and back with no problems whatsoever.
Which is great, since I am working in the Castro tomorrow and want to ride it to work.
It appears i will be making that commute again for the week.
Wednesday I will drop it off in the evening to get the dent popped out of the front fender and I will chalk it up to part of the learning curve.
And when I feel overwhelmed I will soothe myself and regard happily my new plant.
Happy Mother’s Day to you and you and you.
New mom’s, old mom’s, grandma’s, and to those of you who get the gift of mothering yourself too, may it be joyful and everything you need.
Even if it’s just as simple as a green plant hanging in the corner of your soul.
Uh, I mean home.
Auntiebubba 