Mom, Eternal

If you know my mom, you know she’s a witch. Not the green kind or the mean kind or the kind who melts away when she touches water. She’s more like a hint of orange. Full of life. Magic with her powers. A teacher. Eternal in a way that moms usually are.

When we sit down to talk, Mom settles in with some yoga music she found on what is more than likely, my Spotify account. She looks at me like she’s asking permission, and when I give a luke-warm shrug, she plays it anyway. I see now her question was only a courtesy. She doesn’t ask her way into this world, so I let it play, but I do lower the volume. Mom doesn’t notice. We carry on.

It’s moments like this that remind me that Mom has a special way of owning every little thing she does. Like every room she walks into is hers and every person she meets is orbiting around her, and every book that’s ever been written has been to support her theories on the human condition. It’s rare for a woman to be this way-- self-serving and sure of herself. Intentional about the life she’s living.

When I ask her who she is she takes a pause. She’s thoughtful here too. I love that about her. The way she waits before slapping a label on who she is or what she’s done. It’s like she’s taking inventory of her life. Puzzling things together before she can make sense of it. Then, on her exhale, she speaks.  I’m a deeply spiritual person trying to connect with others. And I’m a Mom.

If you can’t by now tell, Mom’s a yoga teacher too. A few years ago, a cousin of ours posted a yoga challenge on Instagram. Instead of scrolling past it, Mom took it to heart, the way she does, and made it her own. Enter: Mom’s Year of Yoga. That year it was like she was brand new again. She momm’d, and lawyer’d, and yoga’d every day for what felt like forever. Juggled all these things like they were meant exactly for her. No sacrificing any parts of herself for the others or making one section smaller to make room for the rest. Mom is expansive. Always growing. Always flowing.

When Mom talks about her time on the mat, there’s a discipline about it. Something strict and free. Rooted in purpose. Swiss Psychiatrist, Carl Jung, says that “The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.” That’s a burden I’ll never know. Mom LIVES her life.

It’s crazy how people can open your world, she says softly, reflecting on the ways that one small Instagram post shifted her entire world. I agree, and I laugh a little, because really, mom usually does just that for people -- opens their world, I mean. She takes the smallest things and really sees you. She’s like an X-ray for the soul. Sees through all the bullshit and calls things for what they really are. Here’s what’s making you sick. Here’s what’s making you hungry. Here’s what’s broken.

When I moved to LA this year I thought I was on fire. I was moving ten million miles a minute, packing and planning and making sure every little thing went right. I had no time to cry or feel or even think about the entire world I had just opted to leave behind. I was all bundled up with armor and walls and protective gear to keep things out. Only good. I kept thinking. Only good. Then Mom came to visit. And we sat at dinner. And we drank wine, and ate pasta and it was like all those things just shed right off me. I was barely a bite in before I could taste the tears in my mouth. And that’s the thing about her. You can’t hide from mom. Her soul just cracks people right open. Brings them home.

I guess then it’s no surprise that her biggest goal in life has been to make a home for all of us. To give us a sense that we fit somewhere. That we matter. That no matter what the world serves us, we have a place in it. She’s given us all this gift of somewhere to go at night-- when we’re scared, when we’re tired, when we’re heartbroken, when we can’t find another place to make us feel whole.

Before us, Mom’s home was mostly with her brother. He was taken from her too soon, and when she talks about him her back gets straight and her eyes get quiet and her voice fills up the whole room. Like she’s speaking for both of them. Keeping space for them to be together again on the other side of all this. I grew up on stories of them the way other kids grew up on Good Night Moon. His memory is the greatest love story I’ve ever known. A never-ending movie. Immortal. When tragedy struck, my mom decided to choose her life. She woke up to it. Took back what was hers.

You decide. She says. Maybe not on all the pieces. But you decide what tomorrow brings. Life is more joyful than it is tragic-- if you let it.

After all this, I realize we have barely spoken about being locked up in this house together for what has been 4 weeks now. It’s because of that thing again, I think. No matter the circumstance, Mom is exactly where Mom is meant to be. She makes you forget all your problems. It’s just you and her. Alive together. But she does say one thing that I hold on to about the now of it all. What the world needs to worry about after this is going back to the way we were. And I think she’s right. What the world needs now is less of who we were and more of who we are going to be. It’s our job now to wake up the Mom did. Own our destinies. Decide.

When we finish talking, the air is still and tight. Like there’s been a God between us or something. Like I’ve gotten the chance to meet my mom and pick her to be mine all over again. And remind myself of the responsibilities I have to myself. Here’s what I think mom means by all of this:

Choose your life. And if you don’t like where it’s led you, choose again.