I send all my problems to my mom. Because she is the wise Earth Mother archetype of my Life Story. She knows the answers, and she gives them without giving them. She nods her head or offers a knowing smile.
“You’re so young,” she confirms. And she reminds me that I have my whole life ahead of me. She agrees with everything I say, everything I discover about myself. Even the contradictory parts.
I love. I hate. She nods. She smiles.
She doesn’t dictate Shoulds and Musts. She doesn’t offer any strategies, nor any plans. She just looks at me, and in her wise eyes I can see my reflection. I can see myself better. Green, but better. Sometimes it makes no difference – it is just that I know she sees me, that I’m there, that I’m feeling, that she’s witnessing it all. And then sometimes, there are answers written in green on my face – I can see them through her.
Sometimes I think I’d like to be a mother. Just so that I can be for my daughter what my mother has been to me. Especially to a little girl who would otherwise be without. I want to be the one that gathers her into mother’s arms and loves her with mother’s love and holds her with mother’s affection. Through all the stages of her life, from her babyhood into her adulthood. As my mother has done for me. I want all my years' experiences to be for my daughter what my mother’s have been for me – the source of all her wisdoms and knowings, the fountain of her understanding.
~|~
Every day, I pack more into the open bag – the big duffle bag for all my winter clothes. One more pair of pants today. I planned my outfit for the plane. Leggings and a long T-shirt. An extra shirt for when America brings me into winter; I’ll be ready.
The story is changing its setting soon. It’s tumbling faster down the hill as hours pass. Home is rolling toward me, toward me, toward me. They’re getting ready for my arrival. They’re getting happy, too. There will be my boyfriend. My mama. My babies. My aunty. My Gigi, my Poopsie. My cousins. My best friend. All waiting for me at the gates to come walking through, to fill the place I left four months ago, again. To fill the Brooke-sized hole in America, the one just for me. The one my 2010 Census guarantees.
I can’t wait to see their faces – those tilted-toothed smiles and the happy cheeks. Who will get to me first? What will Reston’s face say? How will I hug them, hold them, love them all and all at once? I will jump into his arms and kiss the lips I’ve missed for months, and I’ll feel home again. I’ll feel right again. I’ll feel familiar. I’ll remember. I’ll know again how it feels to let him love me. To love him back. The richness.
Oh, I’ll be home again – in the warmth of winter, in the smell of cooking dinner in the oven. The sound of the kettle singing to its boiling pitch. The sticky feet on the clean white tile. TV commercials louder than necessary. The pu-shh of the opening front door. Tiny bell sounds on the hanging wreath. Pa’s snores during an afternoon nap and Gigi’s soaps and gasps. Quarreling children and a hushing mother. Loud teenage laughter. Brittle grass shivering in the cold.
My family, my family, the root of all love in my world.
The remembering is sweet. But living in my own life will be incomparably wonderful.
