I took a walk today. I didn't go very far, but I got almost to the empty lot about half way down my street. That was actually quite an accomplishment. While I was walking I stopped to take some pictures.
This photo is the only one from my own garden, the first magnolia blossom on my small tree. I had planned to do some landscaping to my back and side yards this spring, and update the front beds, but we know what happened to those plans...
It is a quiet Mother's Day in my neighborhood and I hope my neighbors are spending happy days with their families. We got together yesterday, my step-daughter Miriam, my favorite grandson Owen and I. We had barbecue ad watched a movie. But first we made brownies in a mini-muffin tin, brownies with chocolate peanut butter cups inside them. I won't say "Reeses" because we used the ones from Trader Joe's, and I think they are much better. Those peanut-butter brownie bites were George's favorites, and it was nice to make them and share them because yesterday was the anniversary of George's death, and we all wanted to remember him in some simple way.
It was a good way to remember. We also watched one of the Star-Wars movies, The Clone Wars. Owen hadn't seen it yet, and in George's final years he became quite the Star Wars fan, watching the movies over and over, marveling at the inventiveness of the films. We all thought this was odd because he hated science fiction and fantasy films when he was younger. But I think it was just because I turned the subtitles on and he finally knew what was going on. I think (know) his hearing had been bad long before he was willing to admit it. He enjoyed movies and television so much more when he could read the dialog as he watched the film. Perhaps that explains part of his willingness to go to foreign films.
It was a good way to spend the day for me, with the future but remembering the past. It is true I had been thinking about this weekend, and I didn't really think it would be hard for me in some ways, but it would have been harder if I had not spent time with family. I am no longer actively grieving his passing, but that doesn't mean that I don't mourn his loss. And a part of that process for me has also been figuring out my role: if I still have a role in a family I think of as my own, but I wasn't quite sure if they felt the same. In short what is the role of the stepmother when the father is gone? There is no more Dad and Mardel, just Mardel. Am I family? Am I friend? Am I something in-between or none-of-the-above? It is something George worried about, and I suppose he passed that on to me. Sometims the signals seemed mixed and I am far too prone to over-think.
A Mother's Day bouquet from my two step-children, who I will always love and fret over.
One of the good apects of this housebound time has been that it has allowed me to settle myeslf, to realize that I am ready for life to go forward, to blossom. And even though that long extended goodbye was at times difficult, I am glad I had that time, and those memories to savor. I am ready to be whatever I am now, whoever I am now, and although I am not cutting off past relationships, I would love for them to continue to grow and flower into a new dyanamic, all I can do is be myself and plant what seeds I can, add fertilizer and hope for something to grow. I cannot control its growth. In short I tend to fret too much and I am tired of fretting. I am tired of seeing the world through the eyes of expectation. Instead I hope to learn to see and treasure each tendril, each flower, each encounter, each relationship simply for what it is, enjoy the flowering, savoring and nurturing what can be nurtured and accepting that the rest is outside my control, letting it be.
