Tag: mother

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Regular Day

My sweet mother

I am writing this on Mother’s Day, though it will be the day after when you receive it. No longer Mother’s Day. Just Regular Day.

One single-mom Mother’s Day my sons brought me breakfast in bed on a giant piece of plywood they had decorated with black marker. Happy Mother’s Day and drawings all over it. I don’t remember what was served. It was the giant tray that was so memorable. I think of it every Mother’s Day; and on many Regular Days, too.

This morning I sent Bitmoji Mother’s Day texts to my sisters and a few friends, although this is the very thing I say is killing the card business. MY card business!
Texting, email, Bitmoji, emoji–all of these things. And yet they’re so easy. You can send them at the very last moment. And they’re free. And cute. And I do it, too! You have to get the card in the mail in advance, or you’ll risk having it arrive on Regular Day. Right? Just like this letter.

Shouldn’t we all celebrate Regular Day, though? Each day, as they say, is a gift. It truly is. And yet we usually fail to notice. Most of us are healthy and fine enough that we get complacent about each new day. But we could be celebrating Regular Day. And those who are battling a terrible illness or who have a loved one who is would love to have Regular Day celebrations.

So how about we get in the habit of doing so? Send that sweet Bitmoji, text (or, God forbid, card). Make breakfast in bed for someone in your house. Bring a flower or a slice of cake to someone you care about, even on Regular Day. Mow the grass for someone (thank you, Oliver). Call someone you love.

So, Happy Regular Day! May you have many more just as wonderful as this one!

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Baked Alaska

I made Baked Alaska for our Christmas Eve dessert this year. Mmm.

A dreamy, imaginative girl, I held Baked Alaska up as a symbol of the life I might one day lead as a writer, with an apartment in New York City, trips to Paris, and exotic dinners in fancy restaurants. This was loosely based on movies, music, and my mother telling me about Baked Alaska. It sounded exotic, sophisticated, and divine! I don’t quite remember her circumstances, but I’m fairly certain she must have had that pleasure before she married my father and gave birth to us seven kids in the short span of ten years. As a single woman, she had a fun-loving group of girlfriends, took some wonderful trips with them, spent all the money she earned as a secretary on beautiful suits, hats, and travel. It sounded as if she, my aunt, and their friends most likely treated themselves to a few luxuries on those trips.

Paris! Paris! (The brooch is of the Eiffel Tower.)

My mother played the piano and as a girl, she had dreams of one day being a concert pianist. I imagine that her dream, much like mine, included a polished, sophisticated life, though she never spoke of that. I remember her playing certain pieces as we lay in bed at night–a Chopin waltz, “Anitra’s Dance,” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite–both of which I later learned. She would not have described herself as dreamy or imaginative, no, but I think I came by those traits naturally. I bet she pictured herself living a very different life from what she ended up living, as did I. I know she didn’t have as much luck or as many choices as I did, to fashion her own life as she wanted, though.

I have zero regrets about the life I’ve had. Oh, I guess I wish I’d been more adventurous when I was young, traveled more, lived larger. I ended up living very far from my heart’s friend, the sea, but here where I am, I have a truly lovely community of friends that I would not give up. No. I did what I was comfortable with, began to love nature far more than I did as a young woman, and found ways to live a creative life with my three wonderful and amazing sons. I have a small house that needs many repairs but which is filled with modest treasures that I and others have created. It’s not in New York City or Paris, but in humble, lovely-in-its-own-way, Missouri. I have a small piano and a somewhat ragtag group of piano students. I paint. I write these letters and you, my darlings, read them. I even figured out how to make Baked Alaska right here in my own kitchen! It’s a wonderful life.

Inspiration comes from surprising places. This week it came in the guise of a dessert that got me thinking about my childhood, my mother, the piano, and my many dreams. That’s the beauty of writing. It takes you on a journey.

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” ― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.” ― Michelle Obama, Becoming

If you’d like to see my new paintings online, go quickly here. They will be there through January 5, 2023. (Good God! 2023 already!) Be sure to click on the thumbnails to see the whole picture! If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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My Mother the Painter

My mother’s seaside painting

My mother was possibly 80 when she took up painting. She was living in a pleasant mobile home park for people 55 and older, in Sonoma CA. She had a very nice life there. She walked two or three miles a day, did line dancing, played cards in the clubhouse, and lounged by the pool, complete with palm trees. And she took a painting class.

Her painting a la Kandinsky

I have no idea how the class was taught. I only know that she apparently judged most, if not all, of her paintings good enough to frame and hang on her walls. They were all over her place! You have to admire that. Most beginning painters, myself included, judge our paintings and ourselves as not good enough. Not my mother! She wasn’t boastful about her painting at all and she was pretty quiet about it, but she clearly felt proud of what she made. Good for her! So good.

I wonder what made it so easy for her. It was likely just a pastime for her, not a passion, and she held no expectations for her painting or for herself as an artist. She just enjoyed doing it. So there we have it, again. Those pesky expectations. They change everything.

One of my tiny abstracts

My painting teacher pronounces expectation as the killer of joy. When you’re thinking about the outcome, you’re not in the moment. When you’re not in the moment, you’re not enjoying what you’re doing. I certainly have found this to be true. When I do a thing and just enjoy the doing of it, I’m able to flat out love it. I know this. There is great freedom in that.

But so often, we give away that freedom and that joy in pursuit of an outcome. How often we get in our own way! It is just so hard to turn off the judging brain. My mother did it. I can do it sometimes and when I do, oh boy, it’s fun.

“My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.” ― Stephen W. Hawking

“It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.” ― Albert Camus

“The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. And if you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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82

My grandmother’s birthday falls today.

She would be 116 years old

a good long span of time for anyone.

As it was she died at 86, prompting

my own mother’s vow to surpass

her in age.  And that she did

by nearly a decade, prompting my

vow to go at 82, which leaves

(at this writing) twenty one years

to live fully and well, twenty one

years to figure out the basics of

happiness

forgiveness

compassion

fulfillment.

A tall order I realize but then maybe

I’ll be ready next go round

to tackle higher aims.

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98th Birthday

My mother would be ninety-eight today

if she’d struggled through these nearly three

more years.  I do not wish that on her, no.

She lived far too long as it was, longer

than she bargained for, though not as long

as our Great Aunt Irene, who was 104

when she died.  Or was it 105?

I’ve allowed myself a few seconds

to imagine what that might be like.

Forty more years beyond these sixty?

The thought of it exhausts me even now.

No, my mother set her goal plenty high.

Twenty more years will give me all the time

I want, all I’ll ever need and I imagine my

mother would approve.

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Aunt Marie’s Inner Life

As a girl my mother wore giant bows in her curly hair

that somehow stood right up on her head.

There she is, in photo after photo, next to my aunt

whose hair was straight and fine, whose head was bowless.

Later came the big extravagant hats with broad brims,

my aunt favoring pillbox hats and small velvet affairs with

little nets that came down over her face.  My mother

married my father, but Aunt Marie lived with her parents

and then just my grandmother her whole life

except for a short time she was in nursing school

when all the young women stayed in dormitories.

Once graduated, she seemed happy to return home

happy even to share the one bedroom of the small

apartment she and my grandmother rented

after my grandfather died.  One bedroom.

My aunt’s inner life remains a mystery.

Was there really no romance in her, ever?

No longing?  Did she truly never pine?

It appears anyway that she did not, a bafflement

to one who longed and pined and wished

and hoped for so many years, frittering away the

full, fertile hours on who when and why not.

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A Boy Named X

The art-loving boy called X (for Xavier)

nine years old, glasses, wheatstraw hair,

came by again and again to chat

speaking each time of his father but

where was the mother I wanted to know

(dreaded to know) of whom no word

was ever spoken.  One couldn’t escape

noticing his liking to chat with a

motherly old soul and perfect stranger.

One had to wonder.  One hoped

for the best noting that he did seem

a happy boy, a self-directed boy,

affable, good head on two shoulders.

One hoped.  One wanted so much already

for the likable, sweet, art-loving nine years old

boy who went by the name of X.

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Huggable

I love you to pieces

I told my mother each time I called

and she’d say back to me

I love you, too, girl.

I say it to my sons, too, occasionally my

black poodle which in my mind does not

diminish its meaning at all.

I would like to give a squeeze right

this minute to my

oh so huggable mother

now two years gone.

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Lost and Gained

Ripe this morning for

mourning old losses

after a few hours alone

in this old house while

my dogs get hairdos

remembering too well

those grievous days

after my mother died

and Henry and Didimus too.

I spent my time wandering

any place at all that I could

think of just to be free of

the empty house that now

buzzes with the energy of

Rufus and Miles.

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Healing

Home from a healing visit with my sister
my two dogs sprawled across my lap.
I slept in my mother’s old room
tender memories lifting umbrella’d
into the arching vaulted spaces of my brain
my sister and I again our soft familiar selves
oh yes there you are and how I’ve missed you!
no longer separated by whatever sharp edges
had torn and scraped at us now comfortably
companionable once again in that old way
we both had missed more even than we realized.