There’s something about these late nights

A late night self-portrait

My god, is it the end of April already? I can’t believe that we’re winding closer to the end of yet another month and I feel like I’m yet to take advantage of this year and try and accomplish something!! Why do I feel like I’m just pedaling away on a bike and not getting anywhere (heh, reminiscent of those bloody bikes at the gym, but more frustrating!). This feeling of being stagnant won’t shift, and I’m lost as to what I should be doing to try and bring my mind some relief.

I managed to take some portraits of my ma earlier this week…and I’ve found myself staring at them again and again, and wondering about this person who has raised me. I wonder what her dreams and ambitions were when she was my age, what she was doing and what she thought life had in store for her. I’m certain that the chain of events that followed weren’t exactly the things she’d imagined, but where did she get the immense strength that enabled her to cope with one hardship after another?

We are your typical mother-and-daughter in many ways, but in others we are not. We have the usual fights, though these are lessening as I grow older and what used to be fairly violent spats are now little losses of temper which are few and far-between. She has passed on her passion for food in me, and is happy to see that I’ve remembered the hundreds of little tips that she’s passed onto me since I was a little kid.

(I am proud to say that my ma is who made me the fruit-sniffer that I am today!)

Mother’s day is around the corner, and as much as people may think it’s just another of those Hallmark occasions, how on earth do you say thank you for what it is that a mother does? Carrying your gestating self around inside herself for months, giving birth, feeding you, nurturing you, putting band-aids on your sores - both the physical and emotional, sharing your victories and your defeats. Enveloping you with enough love that you went to sleep every night, warm and safe in the knowledge that no matter what happened, she would be there by your side to pick you up.

Somehow, a cursory card and a giftwrapped present hardly seem enough, but I know that she’ll smile and give her thanks, and that it’ll be OK.

Technorati Tags: mothers day, parents, relationships, family, stream of consciousness