It's Sunday morning and the Sunday blues have whopped me hard and I need to get ready to go to the beach.
I am.
Laundry is doing and I have two sweet little free-range chicken breasts simmering in organic free-range chicken broth for a soup to take. In my world, there is nothing more I can do than make soup and if I love you, I have made soup for you, or will.
Yesterday was so full and then last night...
Well. I had to get up and leave the table at one point because the tears shook me and I couldn't look at the faces of Lon and Lis anymore because all of our hearts are connected so deeply and there I was, right in front of them, my husband on one side of me and my daughter on the other and another daughter nearby and people I know everywhere in the room and I felt my heart rise up, swell up as Lon and Lis sang and it was too much, too much.
And then I made my baby cry. Oh, that's a song, isn't it? But I did it by joking with her, me and another woman and we were telling Jessie that she has to be HERE, here, when she has her babies and poor Jessie, fresh-falling, free-falling in love with a boy who is as attached to his family and as loved by them as she is to hers, by hers, couldn't bear to joke about such things and dissolved into the very same tears I'd just been overfilled with.
One of those nights.
I had to come home and write her, tell her that I'd been a stupid Old Testament Mother God, Thou Shalt Have No Other Mothers Before Me and that I had been wrong and that her life is her own and her loves are her own and she must do what she must and all will be well and all will be fine and we'll all work it out and that's the way it will be.
And you know, those tears have found their way back to me this morning. I sit and write and leak from my eyes, my heart still overfilled from last night, from yesterday, from fifty years ago and thirty-four years ago and thirty-two years ago and twenty-four years ago and twenty-one years ago and last year and tomorrow too, most likely.
It is the blues song of yes, there is so much trouble but underneath it all there is this impossible joy and love that tangles my heart like roots of a tree tangle a stone or a buried treasure, keeping it safe in the ground, surrounding it and guarding it, touching it in its dark place, bringing it life over and over again as the pulse of them, filled with earth's sweet water and minerals born of other stones, other treasures, feed life which in turn, feeds more.
The chicken simmers and I need to go cut up celery and carrots and a sweet onion. This must be a mild soup, no crazy heat of pepper, just the easy tastes of chicken and simple vegetables, rice perhaps, wild and brown so that Kathleen can eat it easily. If I could impart all of what is in my heart, this soup would cure all ails of those I love and sooth all hearts of those I love.
If it were only that simple.
Well, sometimes it is.
Music, ocean, soup, trees, cicadas, hands, tears, words, wordlessness, dirt, water, light.
Eyes. Tearfilled and not. Hearts. Overfilled and not.
Happy Sunday, babies. Thank-you for being part of it all.
when i come to you...i swim in holy water. i open like a spring nest of hungry young birds...mouths forever opening like new flowers reaching for the sun and you feed me.
ReplyDeleteyou pull up treasure from the dark musky earth and nurture me. each word rooted firmly in a sage mother's heart.
and then i fly away into the impossibly blue sky fortified and willing to weather this storm we call living.
Ms. Moon.
ReplyDeleteI am quieted by this today.
Deep in my own Sunday as well.
You speak my heart and soul here today.
and may I add, that I am known as a local soup giver .
It makes me proud to be in this great tradition of love giving with you.
have a full full and abundant beach day.
rebecca- Yes. I realize that I wrote about the earth and you the sky today. Perhaps tonight we shall write of water and light. You have no idea what your comments mean to me. Thank-you.
ReplyDeletedeb- Sunday's can be hard. We can write (I first wrote "right") our way out of them. We can make soup. We can be still. We can relax and let it flow within us and without us.
I have learned that all mothers say things that hurt feelings, but there is a character and personality difference between those who admit they were wrong and apologize and those who have no empathy and do not apologize. Clearly you are the former.
ReplyDeleteI am the soup maker of my family too.
Thank you, Mama. Sometimes a girl needs to cry, and we both experienced that last night.
ReplyDeleteI made my first soup yesterday, and I saw it as a huge moment in my life. I am still sprouting and growing. I am grateful you have provided me with that rich soil and water to grow.
I bet you are already on your way -- but, I think you are wonderful and moments like you had last night overwhelm me often when I'm rocked in the arms of family and love. Sometimes its awfully hard to take, even when its a good thing.
ReplyDeleteHoneyluna -- I still remember when I made my first soup a few years ago...it really is a big moment, isn't it?
Oh goodness. Happy Sunday!
ReplyDeleteSo much loveliness. Life is all about the buried treasure.
ReplyDeleteCome on over. I will make you your own soup.
You and Honeyluna are something to behold.
ReplyDeletexoxoxo
I used to feel sad on Sunday because it meant back to work on Monday. Now it is another day to just enjoy and revel in. Enjoy your full heart.
ReplyDeleteI can think of so many instances where my own mother harps on how far we are from her, how no one loves her enough to have stayed close by, etc. etc. It drives me crazy and makes me feel guilty and, frankly, drives me away. However, I am a mother, too, and imagining the time when my own children might one day live far from me just about breaks my heart. What you wrote to your daughter was perfect -- and I hope that one day I will be just as graceful as you.
ReplyDeleteLove to you on a blue Sunday --
hugs to everyone.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's really something that Jessie made her first soup last night. Go Jessie!
yesterday was my Sunday. Today it's raining and I feel surprisingly better.
always happy to have a visit here.
it soothes.
hope the beach is just right.
Sounds like a hootenany! Have fun at the beach.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that you have had a gorgeous, heart-filled day at the beach. Your delicious soup, friends and amazing take-on-life inspire all of us (me, for sure) to appreciate and participate in this thing called Life.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Michele R- My children's lives are their own and in my soul I know that. And that is all there is to it.
ReplyDeleteHoneyLuna- We just ate soup that I made and it was delicious. There is no food more honest than soup. I am proud of you. And I love you. Thank-you for understanding my heart.
SJ- We don't stay in the village in which we were born any more and that is wonderful and that is awful. But honestly- love is good, no matter what. And the rest of it? We'll work it out, as I said.
Ms. Trouble- Same to you, honey.
Lisa- Really? Okay. I would love that.
Michelle- That mean Aunt Jessie? She is star-lit.
Syd- Well. I have a bad history of Sundays.
Elizabeth- Life just has no easy answers, does it? All we can do is love the way we can love. I think, anyway.
Bethany- The beach IS just right. I wish we could all be here together.
Ms. Fleur- It is!
A very meek and mild one.
Swallowtail- Just reporting the facts, m'am, as I see it. I swear. That is all.
I hope your trip to the beach restores your soul and gives you a deep peace.
ReplyDeleteI love you so!
Oh it breaks my heart. I see you love Jessie and must let her lead her own life but that surely is the hardest bit of it. I can't even imagine how worried my mother must have been when I came home with a Scotsman. At the time, I really just didn't see it.
ReplyDeleteYour words speak volumes to me Ms. Moon...I too love my kids as deep as the deepest ocean and I have to restrain myself at times to hold back
ReplyDeletemy circling arms that want them to forever be near me. I know I have to let them have their lives, but still my heart goes to them...when they have children they too will understand that...