Many Hats

it’s the middle of the night and I cannot breathe. Long alien fingers stretch across my chest and press tight across my throat. I want to scream! Scream loud enough for Mother to hear but somehow these light beings have silenced me. I’m floating in disbelief. How is she going to know to come to me? I look up, mind plagued with terror and panic. There she is like an angel in her shimmering silk nightgown. Profound really how a mother knows when their offspring need them. She can see the nightmare wrapped around me, claws digging in. My synaptic passages are tired. I just want to sleep but my body shakes to keep me awake. Afraid to return to the spaces I barely escaped from.

She rubs my feet. Calm energy enters me through my heels and toes and rivers of her love flow up my leg, across my belly and toward my beating heart. She sings a melody in her holy Soprano tones. My heart begins to beat more slowly and my breath returns to normal. I sigh big drifts of pent up air from the bottom of my lungs. I sink deep into sleep and this time no alien fingers left to find me.

In the morning, somehow my Mom with no help from caffeine is up and ready for the day. It is Sunday and breakfast is waiting. I wash my face and hands and mysteriously find myself seated at the table waiting for this glorious breakfast that has the power to fill you up with merely its scent.

He tries to find a space that is any merit for her worth but cannot. She lingers in the minds of everyone she greets. He is lazy and listless with his love. She pours all her love into us. Me, her first born, the first one to call her Mommy.

She teaches school to ensure she is home with us after. She has us reading by three. She studies to show herself approved reading books on nutrition, psychology, exercise and anything else that fascinates her endless curiosity. She watches me and I can feel her gaze.

She plays piano but I am jealous. I take lessons first learning the basics from her. Her sacrifice grew inside me and birthed a gift to play that found me sharing my music around the world. Her girl, not his. I would not have found the way to navigate without her.

Her, the primordial She. Goddess Divine. Holy Mother. No other could ever come close. I have gifts, insights and abilities that ostracized me from my peers. My brain shakes violently and she came to my room and prayed. She taught me how to make it stop. No mockery, just fervid love.

Heat lightning inside my chest walls calling me to be more. To do better. To think less. To give my best. This call to action could only thrive because of my mother’s nurturing love.

My soundboard. My mirror talk. My bomb shelter. My muse.

This neuse around my neck he left for me had me shadow boxing through my Primal Self. The anger and anguish almost pulled me under. It’s no wonder the Divine sent her to be my mother. Counterbalance the aftermath of devastating thunder.

She taught school, was a life coach for women in our church who became better in her care, she danced through the storm and taught us that every penny matters when all you have is pennies. She taught Jazzercise and made sure we had adventures every time her coin purse was full. She made sure her daughters could cook, shop, budget, and keep a clean house.

We are born from our mother’s womb but not every woman knows how to mother her young. I cannot say enough.

Head down on ground to listen to the sound of thunder. Rain pours down pelting me with icy frigidity and my bones shake and shiver. Pain I cannot explain takes over my bones and here she comes in silken waves washing over me with her love. No damage done is beyond her healing capacity.

The heat of her hands run the soles of my feet and somehow this heat spreads to the soul in my chest reminding me that God has a plan for me. There is no option to give up. I sup. I am the woman I’ve become because of the unconditional love of my mother.