Quietly celebrated Mother's day Today. I am not a woman who notes every special event --I should, but I am currently struggling with my children's birthdates that I do not have the time and patience to add "special days" that is mostly dictated by tradition and enhanced by commercialism.
I have nothing against tradition, in fact, despite our gadgets and techie toys, most of our perspective are still traditional, shaped by prejudices, sharpened by old lessons and hardened by our mother's nagging.
I, for example, am battling the chain of domestic chores that our patriarchal society tie on women. I've struggled to become an independent modern woman, with a career to toy with and a clean sink to go home to. I was successful in avoiding the dishes, but I still find myself washing plates of different kinds. It's like leaving my simple little kitchen to prove that I can, only to find myself doing THE task I'm avoiding -- but this time, in a more complicated and bigger food station.
My mother, in all her strictness and monologues, was not wrong when she said that I will someday be like her. In all my daring attempts to test my boundaries, I find myself creating a pen around my children's. In my careless wanderings, I find myself holding back my kid's attempt to explore outside the line I set for them. In all my modern perspective, I still cannot help myself from raising my kids the way my mother raised me, not as tight -- but close nonetheless.
I stil don't understand the concept of nagging, but I think it has to do with the flood of information that you want to share and the rush of emotions and the limitations of language.
The experience of wanting to protect the people you care about is so intense that words are not enough to cater your flowing affection. My mother, was scared to lose me as she watched me struggle as I try to break the cocoon she made for me... She felt a sense of urgency as she watched me peel off layer after layer of the sheltered life she gave me that each verbal reminder is thrusted with a forceful blow hitting the mark harder than usual.
She unknowingly bruised my memory, wounded my soul, and hurt my pride.We always hurt the people we love the most. But it's been years since I've stopped licking my wounds. It's a love and hate relationship -- the best of its kind.
I am a mother now. Or trying to be a good one. But I will always be a little girl in my mom's eyes.
*smiles I find nothing wrong with that.
5 comments:
i dont know why but im excited for dirty dishes :P
except the nagging pls.
you have written another good entry leah. :)
happy mothers day! and i see no problem with not conforming with the norms, i know you can be both modern and traditional. best word would probably be balance.
but then i leave you with lines from my favorite khalil gibrans the prophet. you might want to share the 2nd paragraph with your mom lol
And a woman who held babe against her
bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said-
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of to-morrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not
to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with
yesterday.
You are the bows for which your children as
living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the
infinite, and He bends you with His might that
His arrows may go swift ad far.
Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for
gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He
loves also the bow that is stable.
btw, i added you in facebook. i hope i got the right leah valle. excuse me fake ones :)
oooppps, i forwarded those lines coz i misread 'My mother, in all her strictness and monologues, was not wrong when she said that I will someday be like her'
i thought she was wrong :P my bad
oooppps, i forwarded those lines coz i misread 'My mother, in all her strictness and monologues, was not wrong when she said that I will someday be like her'
i thought she was wrong :P my bad
no wonder we are friends...we are kinda in sync -- in another world of some sort.
but coincidentally, the lines you wrote, are the line i know by heart. I was part of this play where I played the role of Lorena Barrios. Those were not just my lines -- those were my favorite lines ^.^
wooww, what a coincident really :D i heart khalil
Post a Comment