on mothers, munchies, & mutual loves

I bought plane tickets last night for a west coast trip this summer, a little over two weeks in Washington State (Federal Way and Anacortes specifically) with various friends, family, family friends. I realize (it is not lost on me) that this is actually quite similar to my last two weeks, with my mother visiting me here in New York.

I took her back to Newark Airport two days ago via the Newark Airtrain via New Jersey Transit via the A train. We had a last latte together (I managed to dump a good portion of mine all over myself), shared last snippets of conversation over cinnamon scones, wandered the shopping concourse (such as it was), and then hugged each other goodbye (her earring got caught in my sweater as the Airtarin pulled in to Terminal C) and I headed on home via the A train via New Jersey Transit via that funny little airtrain. I was home by 6:30 and found myself feeling more alone than I've felt in awhile.

My mother and I have become friends, it seems, and it doesn't feel strange to have her visit me for two weeks, to have her come inhabit my world (such as it is) for a little while, and it was odd, disconcerting, that night, to come home to a space abruptly devoid of her presence. It's been a bit odd ever since.

We walked and talked our way through Fort Tryon Park, ate bagel sandwiches at Nussbaum & Wu, sipped cheap deli coffee in my office while chatting with Erica and Mary and sundry other library folk, met Nick for an evening of BLTs and margaritas and rum runners at Toast, watched (and loved) Chop Shop and Old Joy and Let the Right One In, met Mark for minestrone soup and paninis at Pisticci, gorged on H&H bagels and Zabar's dill shrimp and Coopers Creek sauvignon blanc, indulged in Palin mockery and South Salem Clinton gossip with Professors Pious and Sloan over mounds of picadillo at Havana Central, made gazpacho and gingerbread for Chris and Andrew, dined with Dave at the Lincoln Center Ollie's, met up with long lost friend Charlie and the lovely Katrina at the Cold Spring Cafe, chatted with Helen over sandwiches at the Mohegan Diner, drank delicious home-brewed coffee with Julie and odd fruit-infused beers with Mike.

She stayed in my apartment one morning so that a locksmith could finally come install a brand new and functional lock (and doorknob) on my apartment door, and had her famous tomato garlic pasta waiting for me when I got home from work that evening.

She spent an hour in a coffee shop on Columbus and 81st Street while I had my very last session with Sarah, and congratulated me with heartfelt happiness on what might have been a sad, if also joyous, subway ride home that night.

We made aebleskivers for the first time in the aebleskiver pan she gave me for Christmas last year, for a brunch with Erica and Freddy.

She baked the McNeil family birthday cake (Betty Crocker choclate cake mix with double-boiler frosting) for Jill while I made up a huge vat of tomato soup for the ladies (Cindy, Lauren, Julie, Jessica, Kathy, Karen, Jill), the babies (Nikhil, Helen) and the boys (Nate, Dave, Andrew).

We browsed The Ink Pad in the Village, stumbled upon the Magnolia Bakery and (there being no line at all!) indulged in cupcakes, then meandered our way over to Chinatown for roast pork & wonton noodle soup at Big Wong.

We attended my brother's fiancee's bridal shower, thrown by her mother, and the mothers, meeting for the first time and having not a thing in common, bonded none the less over their love for their own children, and over their love for each other's children, and it was good to see.

We got a little bit teary over the fact that at the top of Nate and Shanna's wedding registry page is a suggestion for donations to the American Heart Association.

And in the midst of all this, as mentioned above, I realized that she and I, this mother of mine and me, we've somehow truly become friends. We've always been close in our way, but we've had at times what those in the know refer to these days as "issues." In those early years of seeing Sarah she'd sometimes try to get me to talk about my mother, and I'd resist, and this give and take, this back and forth, this digging in of the heels, became something of a joke between us.

Sarah thought that I was in some ways too protective of my mother, thus avoiding having to admit how much I sometimes wanted, how much I sometimes needed, her to protect me.

The other day, as we walked up the stairs to Pinehurst Avenue from 181st Street, frappucinos and grocery bags in hand, my mother paused and turned to me and said, "I guess you probably had a lot to say about me in therapy," and I paused in turn, thinking over those six and a half years I spent seeing Sarah almost weekly, at times twice weekly, and I realized that in a way my mother was right. It's pretty much impossible, I imagine, to be in therapy and never talk about one's mother, whatever the circumstances. But I realized too, and not for the first time, that the way we talk often changes with time and my mother, this dear woman, has become in recent years a source of strength, truly happy in my moments of happiness as she has always been, but also accepting of my sadness, my moments of despair.

It is an amazing thing when one feels entirely comfortable being one's entire self, smart and silly, obtuse and giddy, cold and melodramatic, angry and joyous and sad and boring and lonely and alive, in the presence of another, of a mother, and the comfort this provides is nearly indescribable.