Mom's Day

I didn't sleep in as much as I'd thought about this morning. By 7:30 I was up and recalling that I'd not set my out-of-office message on my work email. I got up, answered a few emails and set the notification up. AM suggested that we have coffee and hang out for a little bit so we pulled on some clothes and headed over to Seven Virtues for bagels, hummus and coffee. We chatted while we each looked at email, message boards, etc., I set up a Twitter account.

Then back to the house and I drove out the Gresham and met Mom at the Cost Plus. We shopped around there a little, I picked up a white cord kit for the paper lamp in our meditation room and a rather keen hat. We first attempted to go to the Truffle Hunter, a place she liked a lot and said had a very good veggie sandwich.

Once the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and provolone cheese was taken off there was lettuce, tomato, sprouts and avocado. The place specializes in bread made on site, however, all types use buttermilk. They offered to come up with a salad (all of the ones on the menu included some type of meat). Mom and I finished our strawberry lemonades, I took my vitamin, and we went to a Chinese place she and her friends like to go to. They made sesame tofu for me special, I suspect that the bean threads & tofu were deep fried in the same oil as shrimp. It was good, a bit salty which may account for the indigestion I felt later.

I took Mom to the Dollar Tree so she could do some shopping there. We then went on to the new Goodwill. Mom found some Halloween things and a couple of shirts, I found several good things, including jeans that fit well. We then went on to the Salvation Army shop, which was on the way to take Mom home.

We were walking around the bric-a-brac and as I came around a corner I saw Mom standing there with a wooden paddle. She smacked her hand with it and laughed while saying to me, "Brings back memories doesn't it?"

I froze a little and slowly blinked my eyes. Mom seemed to sense she'd crossed some line and gave me a worried look, "Well maybe not good memories for you..."

I took a breath and quickly, quietly said to her, "No, not good memories at all and I hope you'll understand that I can't laugh with you."

I didn't say anything else I merely walked past her and started down the next aisle, not really looking at anything and feeling very still inside. I heard her say after me, "Sorry, S..."

That was it. I didn't mention it again and neither did she. I felt a little distant from her, which is a bit strange since I've already felt that way before. I wasn't motivated to say anything further about it. It felt as though I'd already said a tremendous amount.

We drove back to her house. Walking around the house I watched the two cows for a couple of minutes, feeling myself stiffen when she talked about sending them to market next year. They're practically like enormous dogs, following around to where the people are, I commented as much to Mom. Then we went out into the field to pick some corn and pull carrots. I washed up in the kitchen, pet her cats and then we walked out the car. I told her I loved her and I was glad we got to spend the day together.

Both of those are true. It felt like something changed in our relationship when I spoke to her in the store, refusing to laugh along. Who knows if that change will stay. She might obsess over it, but I suspect she will try to cram this down inside of her, distract herself, and refuse to really look at what it means.

I drove home carefully and gratefully. I felt tired. When I got home I showed AM my thrift store finds and we decided to make tempeh, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwiches for dinner using a tomato from our garden. It involved going up to New Seasons for pretty much every ingredient except the tomato! It was nice to have AM drive after driving all day in Gresham and good to have the normalizing experience of getting groceries for dinner.

I still feel drained more than angry, more than sad even. There is still this stillness surrounding the whole thing. I don't feel any physical motivation to cry about it, not even when I told AM about it or writing about it here. I do feel a deep ache in my heart, across my collar bones, but I feel calm as well, able to observe the heavy load of emotions.