At just before nine Sunday morning six eighth grade boys wished me a Happy Mother’s Day as we pulled into the parking lot for their Frisbee tournament. A few had forgotten to say the same to their mothers. One has two dads and the kids reminded him he doesn’t have a mom to say that to (actually, far, far away there *is* one): a Mother’s Day moment, 2012.
I didn’t get a photo of the Frisbee, but this is our pick-up soccer game Sunday.
And one more: later in the day, the little girl abruptly stood up as I leaned over to reach her and the top of her head met the bottom of my chin so hard my tongue bled and my jaw ached and my neck seized up and my head throbbed. It was entirely unintentional, and she cried and I tried to ignore how much pain I experienced and she stopped crying and on we went.
Recovered from the head-meets-chin incident, the little gal sampled Strawberry Nields Whenever
The key to Mother’s Day—regardless of whether you think it’s a big deal or not—is not to set the bar too high.
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Here’s a bit more on motherhood:
Blurred boundaries? When wanna-be-someday grandparents pay for their daughters’ eggs (not the bawk-bawk kind) to be frozen.
For Literary Mama, I got to interview a terrific writer (and lovely person), Elizabeth Mosier. You have to love a conversation that goes from Charlotte’s Web to the writer-mother tightrope act to archaeology.
And here’s an essay about the realization that a hard relationship with her mother might have done the trick in retrospect, despite her surprise at this.
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The next day, I went to my brand-new YogaFlow class—people, I LOVE it and I’m terrible at it, but anyway, I LOVE it—and I met a PhD student here to work for a week in the archives at Smith College. “What are you studying?” I asked. Answer: the abortion rights movement of the 60’s through the 80’s. Given that I was an abortion rights activist, educator—and even an abortion counselor—in the 80’s I am pretty sure the whole thing was a ploy to get me to believe in karma (which I kind of, sometimes, do).
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I could start a Small Humans of Northampton Tumblr
Finally, because it’s Tuesday or because I have nothing more to say at this moment, here’s a link to Humans of New York, a Tumblr that takes you down the rabbit hole, fun.
