Most mothers today, if given the choice of filling a special day with personally selected activities or basically giving in to a long period of rest and relaxation would pick the latter. Forget the special adventures, the shows, the extravagant meals out. Just give me a set of hours where no one expects me to do much of anything. (You disagree? I bet you are an outlier.)
We are a tired bunch.
Still, those of us who are mothers, but of an older generation (meaning our kids are of an age when they have kids), should pick door number one, no? Lots of fun stuff! Outings, shows, excursions!
Not me. I took two long naps today and frankly, I had a hard time getting up from the second one.
Blame it on the weather! Ed says I'm making up for the naps I should have taken in the weeks immediately after the surgery. In the alternative, blame it on our age.
It is a very wet and very cold day for mid-May. We expected as much and the gardens are happy to get that steady slow dose of rain -- it reminds them of what their cousins in England get all the time (and you know how good plant life has it in England!). Still, I have no interest in spending time outside. My only big excursion is to the courtyard, to admire, to smell, and to photograph the lilac, because this day is its best day. All the little flowerlets are open. It is a heady moment and I want to be part of it.
Breakfast, in between naps, in the kitchen!
My Mother's Day is otherwise fluid. I'm devoting another evening this week to celebrating my parenting of my younger daughter (because I have an image of what that would be like and I cannot fit it into this day). Today, I'm cooking dinner (slowly, one step at a time, in between rests) for my older girl and her clan. With that last minute cake that I bought yesterday! My girls look after me well -- they give gifts, they say beautiful things, they make me feel very very lucky.
I do understand that this day is tough for many people who have lost their mothers or who had troubled relations at home. It's always hard to be told to feel joy on a day designated by someone else as special. It may not fit within your own framework of experiences. Nonetheless, recognizing the work of mothers is on balance a good thing and however you sailed through life as a child of a mother or a mother of a child, I think we can all agree that parents in some way formed you and me in the way we are today. So, perhaps Happy Mother's Day is the wrong thing to blurt out there to the world, but maybe just sending out a wish for a peaceful and reflective day (with some downtime thrown in!) will be okay for the vast majority of us children and parents? So, have a peaceful and reflective day!
In the meantime, back at the farmhouse, the gang arrives.
(Sandpiper keeps me company in the kitchen: tomato thief!)
(mom and her kids...)
We have dinner.
Add another mother to the picture and so now we have this one:
We take a farmette walk. It's really cool out there, but still, we take a walk. Because we waited so long for the day when all would be lush and fragrant and beautiful.
And then I resist the temptation to take a nap. Instead, Ed and I settle down on the couch and exhale and I think about how wonderful it is to be alive on this beautiful lilac infused day and how utterly happy I am that my girls have sprouted such totally wonderful families! In other words, I think what countless other mothers think on this day -- am I lucky or what!!
With so much love...
