And it Stoned Me

It's winter in east Texas. A hazy and chilly Saturday afternoon, but the living room of our sprawling ranch home is warm and cozy. From the brick fire place in the center of our family room you can hear the crackling of mesquite logs or some type of log that was probably chopped by my ranch hand daddy then placed carefully in the hearth to create the most perfect blaze.

My beautiful mother is cleaning and dancing to Van Morrison's Moondance album, spinning in unison with the vinyl as the record plays the perfect melody. I must be between seven and nine years old, a bright eyed little blonde headed girl with so many dreams and a whole lifetime to fulfill them. I used to just watch my mother. Watch her while she sat at her typewriter, watch her as she cleaned the house to her favorite vinyl, watch her as she rearranged our living room furniture. She used to do that often, change the orientation of our furniture, working tirelessly to create something new. Almost like her and the furniture were connected by some invisible force and if it changed, maybe so would she. Of course I didn't know then why she often shifted our living room around. Only when I grew older and started doing it myself did I finally get it.

Photo Credit: Kristi Johnson (my mommy)

Now I am almost the same age as she was during this memory, one that's etched so clearly in my brain, and with my own little curious bright eyed 9 year old watching my every move. He is definitely a lot like me in that sense. Always watching and listening in secrecy (Or what he thinks is secrecy, I've caught on now and usually shoo him away), too eager to learn what life is really about. Too eager to grow up and be an adult and do adult things. It's amazing, isn't it? The circle of life and how things work. How we become the things that we admire the most without even realizing it. It makes me want to create the same type of warm environment for my children to grow up in, a life worth remembering and retelling. A type of invisible guidebook for my children to grow up and follow as they raise my future grand babies. I can only hope that my children grow to regard me in the same way that I do my own mother, with bittersweet emotions and as an anchor to what life is really about. Love.