An artist mother's perspective on Mother's day, from a sketchbook I kept on a trip to Paris with my son when he was five:
Colin has walked long distances without too much complaining, stood on street corners while I've tried to decipher the map, and endured alien foot-long hotdogs on french bread.
Still today was a day for me to imagine with some longing and irritation how great it would be traveling alone in Paris, walking long distances, just looking and not telling stories to amuse a child, and able to pull out my sketchbook in a cafe when I wanted to draw and drink coffee undisturbed.
So instead of enjoying the afternoon we quarreled and reacted to each other's bad mood. Colin surprised me tonight by saying I was mad at him all day, why was that? And that if I had only let him "catch the black fish in the river with my bare hands" we never would have argued.
He's right, I should have let him get wet in the Seine and chase ducks on the quay--and not played the foolish game of "what if" instead of being thankful for what I have.
3 comments:
This is a lovely Mothers Day message for all of us. Thank you for sharing.
I so relate to that kind of remembering back on Mother's Day, with a sweet sadness of those precious days, and how they weren't always what they could have been. If only we knew then what we know now now. Your sketches so perfectly capture the sweetness and innocence of a sleeping child.
Well, my son is now almost 20 and off alone on a three week hike now in the mountains--his spirit of outdoor adventure remained intact, anyway!
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