Sunday Morning Musings

I am becoming my mother - version 2.0. No matter that I try to fight it by sometimes consciously doing the oppossite of what she would do, I look in the mirror with a straight face and she smiles back, lol. I suppose all women do, eventually become their mothers as a sort of ode to her and all of her hard work and love expressed to raise you, shape you...into her! They make us and we become them. Of course, now, in my 30s I admire my mother and recognize her as the strong and courageous and intelligent person she's always been. Growing up I couldn't see it, I was oblivious, naturally. But now I get why all of my friends and everyone around us loved and admired her so much; I see what they saw in her. She brought me here alone from the midwest at 2 months old with my grandfathers advice, 5 bucks, and a bassinette full of baby clothes. Completely stunned my father and everyone else who said we'd be back home in a months time, TOPS. 3 decades later and we're still here and doing quite well.
So as I've grown and begun to notice her all over my face, in my mannerisms, in my heart, I've learned what it means to have it all, to be every woman (chaka khan, chaka khan) and to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan (cause I'm a woooooman, Enjoli! <---This line originally appeared in an ad for Enjoli perfume, which had paraphrased it from the Lieber/Stoller song "I'm a Woman")...something usually ends up giving and the myth is exposed for what it is. It's liberating to no longer feel the need to believe in that one perfect image, the ideal of being every woman. I'm having a swell time forging my own way, the best I know how, thank you. And I'm realizing my dreams and watching fantasies evolve and wither as I change, lose interest in them that I thought would complete me. And that's alright. I've come to grips with those old expectations, things I thought I wanted as a child (usually because my TV and those around me, stuck in their respective boxes, told me to). This *moves hands up and down my sides like a Price is Right model* is precisely who I want to be now that I've grown up :) And when I'm 50 or 60 I want to reminisce over all of the wonderful things I decided I wanted to do and did, the risks I took, the mistakes I made, my successes and even the failures.
I've also made the realization that certain decisions can affect ones path in life. Seems obvious, I know, (Choose door #2 or take the showcase you already know about? Oh decisions!) but work with me here, por favor. I often wonder how much differently my life would be had I followed what Olga's tarot cards told me that day in the restaurant http://musefromabroad.blogspot.com/2009/02/olga.html, or what the lady swinging the pendulum told me that my chakras told her. How much of what they told me did I leave behind and how much did I subconsciously carry with me? The power of suggestion is strong. Where would I be had I left sooner? Would I be where I am now? Would I be closer to where I'm going? Or somewhere altogether different from what I could have ever dreamed?
One of the things I've learned as I've gotten older is that there is no magical age you reach where you know it all. You never stop learning and the adventure doesn't end until you take your last breath. Something new awaits you each and every day that you open your eyes; it's up to you to recognize it through the mundane and not passively dismiss your days as any other. It's all new, not a repeat of the same and when you begin to notice the variations in the theme (stop and ROLL in the flowers, don't just smell them) you truly begin to appreciate life for what it is - a constant discovery, a great big adventure, an evolving story where you are/can be the main character, a practice, a career, a monument of your own creation, an ode to you, you mother and all the relatives before you, a collection of thoughts and experiences, hearts beating, cells moving, constant change and spinning until we all fall down...exhilarated.
What a brain dump. I have no idea if what I just wrote has any real rhyme or reason explained within it. Me, uncut. Hope you found a gist in there somewhere, though.