The visit with my mom was the raddest ever. At times I was tested. I struggled. I recalled the days of my youth in a way that inspired a drink and I did have a sip or two. Yes I did. But I did it damn well. And it was the best ever. I have never seen my mother's face as beautiful or as beaming, as when receiving my love and respect and encouragement. It feels foolish to love so completely. Foolish and also slightly frightening.
****
The Heart gives love, but it also receives love by allowing others to enter its most private territories, which is the greatest act of faith a human can perform. In our Heart centers, others have the power, not only to heal us with their love, but also to destroy us if they should deny or abuse that love. In this way, the Heart is our most vulnerable organ: It must be open in order to receive what it needs, yet its openness contains the seeds of despair. It is a paradox that terrifies all who honestly consider it, and which prevents many people from accepting the love they crave.
-Reichstein "wood becomes water: Chinese Medicine in Everyday Life"
****
I realize it scares me to open my heart this wide because she hurt me once without even realizing it long ago in a childhood far away. And I realize this is the first "break-up" in our lives. The first real heartbreak: not between love-struck teenagers, but between parent and child. And as the first thorn thrust, it hurts in a way that seems natural. Normal. And that keeps us apart from one another.
So I decide to forgive her for all the little pains and neuroses and failings. I have changed. I have realized how to do things differently. And I connect with her in a way I have not since I was cherubically young. And it gives me a joy that reaches all the way back to that 5 year old super-star.
And I reach out my hand and we are both Awesome. Both shining stars with nothing in our way. It is strange, so strange to forgive the old wounds. For that 5 year old to re-emerge as 30+, with the same flame I knew so long ago. So many years ago.
How strange. How odd indeed. And how frightening...
p.s. sorry no, it was not my birthday. the cost of my comfortably cryptic tendencies is the confusion it causes. but I think it is a fine happy un-birthday to us both. A fine un-birthday indeed to you all.
2 comments:
I commend you. That was a lovely post. And I commend your mother, too. No matter what happened in the ensuing years, you have that place in your heart when you and she loved each other purely.
You know she loved you that way.
glory hal la lu ya! So glad to hear it. and an excellent post, though as I read it I felt completely absorbed in my own worries that I may break my daughter's heart one day, I so hope I haven't already, some how, without realizing it, I don't think so.... I so don't want her to pull away, to shield herself from me.... man o man....
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