Your Passions are Contagious

For Mother’s Day, my sons surprised me with brunch at Jean-Claude’s Table, a créperie on Wharf Street in the Old Port which I didn’t even know existed.  I work downtown and walk through the Old Port at least weekly and yet I had never seen this tiny bistro with small tables atop the cobblestone of this ancient back street which runs parallel to Fore Street.  Not knowing it made their surprise even more special.  That they sought out the perfect place for me meant everything.  

Being ever the romantic and having visited Paris at 21, where créperies lined street corners like hot dog stands do in our cities, I fell in love with all things French – Chanel suits, Lancôme cosmetics, the architecture, the beautiful language, Creuset cookware, and cheese…mon dieu, the cheese!  Slightly burned out at mid-life, what I’d give to run away to a little French village and run a patisserie, using my hands for the rest of my life and not my head!  

Anyway, I digress (as I tend to do).  My thoughts just free fall.

I realized at brunch that it is a WONDERFUL thing to have things you love and passions, to be known to those who love you.  Because, the pride my sons felt in choosing that bistro equaled the joy I received in the gift.  There was as much pleasure to the giver as the receiver because they were proud to have selected so well what I would love.  They felt successful when seeing how happy I was.  They couldn’t have experienced that if I didn’t have things I love….and let those things be known.  I’ve had people in my life with seemingly no hobbies, no known passions, no favorite food or restaurant or place in the world.  It’s challenging to please them and certainly buy them a gift.  

Make your loves known….and do love whatever matters to you – the color pink, picnics on lakes, shoes, pedicures, lavender oil, the smell of freshly mowed grass, art, bubble bath that smells like mango, French cheese!  What it is doesn’t matter.  What matters is that it pleases YOU….and your pleasure will become contagious for others when they witness your joy. 

Photo:  My Danish college roommate who traveled to Paris with me 29 years ago...

Happy Mother's Day!

This is an excerpt from Chapter 8 “Challenges of Being a Working Mom”

from my upcoming book titled Mothers Fulfilled which will be out late 2012.
    

“Pictures, journal entries, home movies are treasures and I still watch those often…but they will never replace the real face-to-face observing, remembering how soft their skin to my touch, their eyes dripping with tears, their baby smells, their wet butterfly kisses on my mouth, their exploration and wonder of the simplest things.  It is watching children for extended periods of time that remind us what joy is in case we have forgotten.

I wish, while lying with Ben, I rubbed his back more.  From when he was a toddler, he would always lift the back of his pajama top to have his back rubbed.  It soothed him and gave him great pleasure.  I did rub it a lot, but never enough.  At 17, standing over six feet tall with 34-inch pant legs, I sometimes just look at this man and try to remember his tiny frame, his bony back, my fingertips feather light touching all corners of it.  I so clearly remember the times when he asked me to rub his back, when he asked me to lay down beside him until he fell asleep, when he asked me to read just a little bit more. 

I did not draw enough with chalk in the driveway, play Star Wars with their figures, paint with my fingers, build with blocks.  I did all of it, but my point is these things are so short lived, I wish I had done more.” 

 

 Photos:  the mothers and kids in my life