I've been pretty quiet this week, trying to recover from a crushing disappointment. As always, I am finding comfort in good friends, good books, my garden, my pets, and too much ice cream. I'm not going to talk about it, but that's where I've been.
Every so often, I indulge myself and reread The Lord of the Rings. It's like going on vacation and going on a pilgrimage and going home, all at once. I cry like a baby every time, especially on the Field of Cormallen. And when I'm done, I feel bolstered in my spirit. I know this makes me a dork, but I don't care. I'm just getting back, now, after being there for a week. I pretend that I've outgrown my deep desire for Middle-earth, but I haven't.
Sometimes I miss my mom, not as my mother, but as the grown-up friend I would have had in her. I was looking at some photos the other day and realized with a shock that she was as old in those pictures as I am now. Why does she look so much more grown-up and mature and together? I still look like the goofy kid I was in this picture:
Oh, those big goofy glasses! She wouldn't smile much for photos, either. Worried that her gums would show. SO ridiculous, she had a lovely smile.
It's June, I'm home, the garden is blooming, and I baked bread today. I keep telling myself that that is enough.
love you lots. remember the good and focus on the present.
btw, i for one am glad you are out of your stonewashed mom jeans and perm phase. you are beautiful, and there is so much of your mother in you (and I’ve never met her!!)
“Enough” and “should be” are things that have an amazing way of comforting one day and stabbing the next. They’re a mystery and so relative to circumstance yet so universal to the souls that wait….
I love you, my friend.
We do live in Middle Earth- after the FAll- before the New Earth- and on te maps it says “here be dragons”- and thin of Gramma’s feet- Hobbitses!
There was sadness and disappointment in Middle Earth and evil-GREAT EVIL!
So Buck up,Ally! Come back from your mind meanderings and be that woman that your mother raised and looked forward to befriending. You don’t look goofy- you look like MY grown up friend- and I love you .