Mothers Day

Today is Mothers day.

My mother passed away over 20 years ago. She taught me many things: how to eat with a spoon, how to make fried jelly sandwiches, what color clothing went best with my skin tone, how to finish things I’d started, how to always be truthful and how all people are equal in the eyes of God. All these things have stayed with me for my whole long life.

If being a mother means imparting knowledge, then dance is my mother as well. The lifelong study of dance has taught me many things: how to use my brain and trust my feelings, how hard work is it’s own reward, how smart my body is, how working together can be more rewarding that working alone, how to hear and feel the rhythms of the universe and how to breathe deeply. These things I hope I never forget.

My third mother would be the earth. She teaches me quietly as I sleep and she gifts me every day, with another day of buttercups in the empty lot across from my house. Whatever horrible things we do to her she keeps giving us such simple beauty. Every year the grass gets green and the trees burst into flowers. That is also motherhood. We women are so strong, so enduring, so giving. I am proud to be a woman and a mother.

As a mother, I have children. They are all grown women and men. I worry about them every day, whether they are far or near. I hope and pray that I have given them enough… enough knowledge, enough beauty, enough love. I long for them when they are far from me, for a piece of my heart has gone with them wherever they roam. Motherhood is so much more than the act of having a child. Once you pass through the gate you are changed forever. It is a journey that never ends. It is a mason jar full of buttercups next to a plate with a fried jelly sandwich.

It is love.