surrogates

i've been having another one of those blog crises. not the kind where i don't have anything to write, but the kind where i saw julie & julia over the break and found julie so annoying especially regarding her blog that i couldn't bear the thought of posting on this old self-absorbed thing.

sadly, my troubles go deeper than this blog, since i'm making nonfiction my educational pursuit (that is a deliberate phrase, because i'm not willing to commit to anything past 6 months right now.) but i have to remind myself that the essays i love to read and aspire to write are not self-absorbed. they are the kind of essays that blow your mind wide open to a view of the universe and help you see your smallness and your significance at the very same time.

"so," perhaps you ask, "why are you back?" (not like i even took a break, just experienced lots of inner turmoil.)

i'm back mostly because i really like to write but my hands start to seize and shake when i try to "write" anything for school. and because a few years of blogging have made me incapable of expressing meaningful things in person, so if i stop now, my relationships might shrivel up and die like our old resurrection plant that went limp every saturday and revived every sunday. (not on it's own; it was the old "just add water" trick. we could never remember to water a living plant. there's probably a metaphor there but you have to shape it yourself.) and now, i'm going to overwhelm you with words as proof of my new resolve.

anyway, i do have things on my mind, but they are a little dreary (aka personal and about death), so be warned. i had another dream about mom last night and she gave me a good long hug. in the dream, i thought, "this is just like when we hugged goodbye before she died," except that we never hugged goodbye in real life because that's not really how it goes when people die. but wouldn't that be crazy?! what if death was more like it is in the giver-- a big celebration and then taking a different door than everyone else when the party is over--what if there was a moment where you'd say, "i'm going now. goodbye."? i guess it is more like that for some people than it was for mom, but it's certainly less like that for others who die without any warning. it would be much less sad if you could have a good hug and wave as someone passed through a door. as it is, there's the finality of a lifeless body returning your wave. and even for someone who believes fully in the nevertheless of the resurrection as a principle (“For I know that ye have searched much, many of you, to know of things to come; wherefore I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die; nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God.” --2 Nephi 9:4) it still takes a whole heap of faith to factor that principle into reality when death is so persuasively permanent.

this all leads to my point: i know i still have a mother. but how do i experience her mothering while she's not around? so many of the quintessential "mother" acts are physical, sensory, tangible: hugs, phone calls, meals, babysitting your kids, a body sitting in the audience of your main events and going for ice cream after, etc. it's not that i can't see her influence in my life, nor is it about living to make her proud of me: it's about mothers being "there" for you in a "i know where to go to find you when i need you" sort of way. maybe i just have this essay on my brain.

while i try to figure all this out, i've seen surrogate mothers appear all around me and it has been one of the profoundly beautiful experiences of my life. these women have always been nearby, but in the past few years, they've seemed to sense when and how i've needed a little more: someone at my college graduation, someone taking me to lunch, someone to sit with in church, someone to call while i'm walking home from school, someone opening her home at all hours, someone to go shopping with, someone talking me through the mystery of love, someones to make christmas happen, someones trying to steady my boat because even though we all lost they still manage to reach out to me.

to my older sisters (you too d)
to my aunts
to my grandmothers
to mom's cousins
to mom's friends
to the women in my ward
to my cousins
to my friends

thank you for filling the space with love.