Mother's Day

I woke up this morning and greeted my brother and his girlfriend who were preparing to leave for their day in Kyoto.  We ate breakfast together and chatted, making plans for the evening.  After they left I tidied up the table, cleaned the dishes, put some brown rice on the stove and started a new pot of azuki beans to simmer for an hour.  I caught up on some finances and started to study Japanese while the beans and rice cooked in their individual pots, checking in with them every so often.

I started to reflect on the pleasure of taking care of my home, of having time to cook something, to clean, to sort things.  And to take care of other people, to make sure that they know how to manage the day ahead, to enjoy their company, to allow them to go off on their own to explore the world.

Today is Mother's Day.  My mother, having gotten a rare evening of paid time off, took advantage of it to make an even rarer impromptu call to my phone; I think hoping to catch both me and my brother for a Skype chat.  It alarmed me at first–was something wrong?–and then it felt tinged with Lynch-like irony.  My mother calling me from a day behind on my mother's day.  Something was backwards.

And wonderful.  We talked for an hour, just the two of us.  I feel so lucky to have my mother.  As far away from home and from her as I am, as I grow older and learn more of myself in the world, I feel closer and closer to her all the time.  There is something of her that grows in me as I grow.  It is very comforting.

And now it is my turn to give her a call with my brother, on the real Mother's Day.  Happy Mother's to all.