Mom & Me Journals Histories: 1999 - 2001

    My experience of my commitment is, well, it's not lonely, in fact, sometimes it is much too packed with people. There are times, though, when I feel as though I have had to put aside the essence of me (even as I do those things which are natural to me, aside from my mother's life, which I discovered and practiced before and continue to discover and practice, now) because I am always focused on my mother. Even when I visit friends or they visit me. Even when I engage with a lover and he with me, my mother is there; not as a cautionary, not as a ruler, but as my charge. It colors everything I do, all of my relationships.

    Having already told you that I have this fantasy, as well, with you, I must also tell you that this fantasy is unlikely to play itself out in reality because of the commitment I have made to be my mother's companion up to her death. I do not consider this commitment a substitute for childbearing and rearing. It is completely different than these and, as it turns out right now in this society, much rarer than that. It is, though, something to which I have committed myself, voluntarily and gladly, and any other commitments I chose to make will, necessarily, submit to this one until this one is done.

    I find, for instance, that I have fallen in love with, and continue to fall deeper in love with my mother, as I come to know her in this part of her life.

    One last (jarring, I'm afraid, but not bad) reason I have had to neglect my favorite very early morning time, lately, to sleep is because as we prepare this house for its winter rest and gather our (my mother's) "stuff" for transfer she is an evening and late night person. "I've always hated to go to bed," she tells me, almost every night, and, I know, since she was a child, she has. Our seasonal gathering and transfer of "stuff" is something in which she wants to be involved (it is primarily her stuff, after all) and as long as she wants to, as long as she remembers to, I want her to so I make it happen. During the days of The Move I observe a sort of Mother Saving Time and switch my clock to hers. I believe this is part of what keeps her going and keeps her wondering enough about life to continue looking forward, wanting to see what lies ahead, even unto her death, which is an adventure in itself. My observance of her version of this Ancient Journey is something I would not give up for anything, not anything...

    AND, since I made sure, in my careful way, that yesterday, my birthday, in this household, in my community, where I live, was all about me (I do, and yesterday did, this on purpose, so I don't get lost in my mother's life, which would be very bad for both her and me), today is all about my mother. I'm sure, I say with a knowing, loving smile "about" her, that this is the reason she began to "crank"; yesterday. Every phone call was for me, every knock at the door, every time I turned around I was singing "Happy Birthday" to myself at the top of my lungs, everything thing I did, yesterday, except for the necessities, was for me, including the exhilarating amount of time I spent with you. And, I can hear my mother rousing, so, her day is about to begin, and mine as it surrounds hers.

    You are absolutely right in guessing why I used the word "pornography". My erotica is not pornography to me, it's too genteel for that word, I think, but it is to my mother, and I was writing to you about my mother's concept (and expression) of what I do. Sometimes, I think the reason she prefers the word "pornography" to describe all sexual material is because, having been raised in a staid and stony household (very much unlike the household she and my father created, into which they bore their children and through which they raised their children), I think the word "pornography" captures a bit of the excitement she feels about having a daughter who does what, to her, is a very foreign activity, combined with her inability to even imagine what sexual writing must be like. Considering it to be "pornography" allows her to share in my excitement about it at her own level without actually having to read the stuff. She's a funny woman. Sometimes, I can tell, when she is looking at me, considering me, she is thinking, "I created her?!? She came from me?!? I didn't know I had it in me..."
    Good word to describe her and her life, "complex". She is, indeed, complex, and, as such, is going past that "point of no return" in her life in unusual and eye-opening ways, with much bravery, although she wouldn't consider it bravery, she'd consider it "just living". Which is exactly why I want to make it possible for her to continue as she has. And, you are right that I have a "beautiful relationship" with her. Sometimes it is so rich that I feel sad for my sisters that their lives are beyond having her in their lives so closely except through me.