At first it was an owl that woke me, then, as I listened and waited, morning birds, gulls and another with a tweet something like I hear in winter in the South; perhaps he followed us up here, 1,700 miles to the north. 

I opened the door and saw the furthermost point of Cape Cod sitting still and beautiful in the ocean, the exact same sight the Pilgrims saw 300 years earlier. The stillness and quietness, before the impending season of tourists, was tranquil and something I do not think I ever have felt before.

 I welcomed these sounds of silence and understood how Elizabeth easily left the City for this, this peace. The inn on the Cape was 100 years old and there were wooden floors beneath the carpets and stories I heard from the steps above. No cars, no phone, no clatter, just a space, an empty space where the ocean met the shore just as it has done for all time, where your thoughts were unadulterated and your mind belonged to only you. Suddenly, the birds were quiet as they skimmed the ocean, the low tide, for food. 

 I cherish those sort of uncommon moments within this sometimes fast-paced, clogged-up world, I admit. Face to face with only you, no distractions, no into someone else’s business or life, just you and emerging questions, questions that might make you squirm and thoughts that might give you comfort. 

  I offer this piece with that visual, my “virtual” gift to all of the moms. I do this with the intent of reflection on this beautiful Sunday in May, this Mother’s Day. I am not and you are not where the ocean meets the shore but perhaps we can find, today, amongst the hugs and kisses and bountiful love, fleeting and momentary stillness to reflect. 

 These specific holidays are nice, I suppose, nice if your life is tidy and intact, not so much if it isn’t. I, like all of you, remember my mother each day of the year, practically each moment of the day. It’s funny how mothers never really leave, how we, their children, carry their words, their love with us always. Each task I perform, each decision I make, she is there, always my mentor and forever my supporter. Like you, I had the best mom ever.

 I leave this simple piece with a paraphrased quote from my Jewish mother in law — I purposefully use “Jewish” to describe her with affection. She had gathered many many sayings by the time I first met her in her tiny bookstore on Miami Beach. Some of them were from her mother, and some from her friends, all based on truisms and experiences. One that has stuck with me was about mothers. She first told me this when I was a young mother trying hard (sometimes not doing so well) to see about everything and everyone, a job I was never trained to do — “One mother can take care of nine children but nine children cannot take care of one mother.” Certainly some humor and possibly some harsh truth in that. Anyway, take care of your mothers, today and every day, for, they “love you more.”

 

PAM SHENSKY is a wife, mom to five and blogs at www.pamshensky.com.