Tag Archives: traits

SOME THINGS ARE JUST FOR ME – a meditation for one

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It is the 11th day of August and the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’ve missed a day again. Time is elusive, hard to grasp. It’s like holding onto water. It slips slides away faster, the harder you try to hold onto it. Before it does today, I’m sitting down, my fingers are on the keyboard, to have this conversation. I’ve come back from grocery shopping with my parents. I’ve unloaded and carried theirs into their house. Mine are sitting on the kitchen floor. No perishables. They will be alright.

Sometimes you just have to drop everything just to have some time/things for yourself. You can run yourself ragged if you don’t. I have that habit of doing, of being productive, of doing/giving for others, trying not to being selfish. Sometimes I end up feeling neglected, resentful with mean thoughts. It’s no one’s fault except mine own. I recognize my flaw, my incorrect thinking. Now I try not to fall into that hole as much. Now I try not to share all of me and what I have. It is nice to keep some thoughts/things just for myself.

It was difficult not to give this bitter melon to my mother but I fought the urge. I told myself I had given her one already and there are 2 more little ones growing on the vine. And she has been complaining she got too much fresh vegetables. Everyone is giving her so much. So I kept this pretty one and cooked it just for myself. It was quite delicious, not that bitter at all. Pretty good for my first adventure growing and cooking a bitter melon. I hope I will get a few more than 2 though it is getting late in the season.

I know I inherited/learned this trait from my mother. She’s always giving/sharing all of her stuff. It’s hard to refuse. I’m trying to learn to be gracious about it. After all, they’re gifts and she is almost 90. It probably makes her feel good she can still give. Like mother and daughter, we find it hard to take. She is learning, too, to take as well as give.

BECOMING MY MOTHER

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Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Daylight hours here in Saskatoon = 7 hours 43 minutes. In other years my mother would be making glutinous rice ball soup. She made two kinds – one with a sweet sauce and one with a savory soup of vegetables, meat and spices. I prefer the latter. It’s a process. It’s another thing she has given up with advancing age and declining health. I have made the effort once. It turned out not bad. I should make it every year as the Chinese do celebrate Winter Solstice. It would have been a comforting thing on a gloomy day. I would be carrying on my mother’s tradition. I can still do it on another day.

More and more, I find myself becoming my mother. I hear her voice and laugh in mine. Sometimes when I am moving, I feel as I am her. Maybe those traits were always in me but I’m just recognizing and acknowledging them now. I don’t know any young woman who would want to be their mother. I remember having many mother/daughter disagreements and fights. I was reading books like My Mother/Myself by Nancy Friday. I wish I still have that copy but I’ve tossed it thinking I’m done. I was wrong. A daughter is never done with mother/daughter relationships. Great that I found it in the library system and have requested it. It will be interesting reading from my now vantage point.

We have no more fiery encounters. We have both mellowed and respect each other’s abilities and individual rights. She can no more order me around than I could order her. Equals at last. She still like to tell me that I am sloppy and bad tempered like my father. Also that she can still clean better than me. That is true. But she’s also said that my sticky rice was pretty good and that I am making pretty good art.

It’s all good at this stage in our lives. Those difficult days of struggling to make a living are behind us. We have reached Gold Mountain at last. We have climbed its slippery slopes and reached the Promised Land. We are living our best parts. Happy Winter Solstice!