Jenna's been spending the day painting. I'm posting this to remind myself to snap some pics of her latest artwork. Gotta do that. Soon.
She said to me after finishing a drawing with colored pencils today, "Mom, when I draw something, I wish I could make it come alive. I want it to come alive."
I said, "It does--in my eyes. It does come alive."
That was one of the nicer things I said today.
I've been an absolute crab. A bear to self, to husband and child. It has something to do with being sick. And some wierd Greek coffee that was all we had in the house in the way of caffine today. I told George, I get goofy when I drink this stuff. So I did. Drink it. And get goofy. And grumpy.
When I'm sick (have an ear infection), I'm not easy to console. I want to be under the covers by myself, but being a mother, it's hard to get the child to understand that. Even when dad is occupying her, it's not long before she sneaks upstairs onto the bed with words that go something like this: "I'm not bothering you mom. I'm just checking on you." Then you get rolled on and laughed at and sat on and asked a million questions, the last one being, "So, I'm not bothering you, right?"
"Right."
You want to say, PLEASE go away. Just pretend to be invisible for an hour or two. I'm so sorry I'm such a terrible mother, but I don't want to be a mother today. I don't want to be a mother when I'm sick.
I want to be mothered.
And therein lies the problem.
My mother once told me that no matter how brave, how strong, how tough a person is--even if he's a grown man--when that person is dying, they want their mother. When a man is in pain, he cries for his mother.
I realized she had seen this first hand. More than once. I remember the moment she imparated this knowledge to me to be quite profound. And quite terrifying. And it never fails to cross my mind when I'm sick. It's not consoling to me. It's frightening.
She didn't mean it to be. She meant it to be comforting, I think. To show me that everyone--not just the me who used to be so much more insecure--wants their mother in times of ultimate chaos and pain and torture.
But there's something else to it.
Something primal.
Something terrifying.
Something ....
some thing to do with loss. I don't know.
developing....
