Wanderlust

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XIV

RESPECT

I've never been a very reverent person. Celebrity mania seems like a disease I wouldn't want to catch and when it comes to God... well, let's just say I'm pretty sure Jesus was a real nice guy. Even things I've participated in, such as the serious endeavor of matrimony, inspire my flippant, unholy attitude. I think George and I should get divorced as a testiment to our love on our twenty fifth anniversary so I can be sixty and living in SIN. So, yeah. Not alot of respect here in the Weida household for the sacredness of cultural shit. George says he even refuses to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day because it's a holiday Hallmark made up. Course this is the same guy who ritualistically observes Faschnact day. We have priorities. They're just weird.

But I've found a new source of reverence as a mother and it makes me feel all squishy and embarassed, like a big twinkie cliche. My relationship with my own mother has passed through the standard stages. Complete childhood dependence and adoration gave way to mortification mingled with teenage angst. After college, we passed into the the phase of acceptance and akward truce. Marriage was followed by a season of goodwill and mutual friendship. Now, as a mother in my own right, I find myself moving into a bewildering and foreign territory- respectful awe.

Everytime I am out walking around a block and I see a young kid go riding by on their motorized scooter (nobody rides bikes anymore, didn't you know? So last year) or a toddler playing in the grass, the first thought that streakes through my brain is this. Someone stayed up nights, fretting and worrying about that kid. Some mother hung on the edge of delirium and exhaustion, sacrificed the shape of her body and the future of her thighs, gave up her financial security and maritial stability just to send that little being out into the world, fully clothed and adored. The strength of the sacrifice and the intimacy of the relationship is humbling.

Fortunately for Moms, this is not a one sided gig. As I write this, I'm balancing a leaning Owen, who is attempting to devour the bare skin of my shoulder whole, bathing it in his drooling slober. I'm inhaling the distinct smell of new skin as his cheek drifts back and forth past my own and I'm thinking there's nothing lovelier than this. And then he spits up in my hair.