Another Part of Prague
When people ask me what my mother is like, I often respond "a mother". That's because she's not just a mother, she's the mother. Her longtime job and personality seem to have gotten intertwined, and I'll never know if it was her maternal personality that makes her so good at her job, or her job that heightens and brightness an already very maternal personality. Her motherhood seems to twirl about her like the fabric of a long dress, encompassing her and billowing out to reach places her body wouldn't normally be able to reach. Not only can I say with few reservations that my mother is one of the best bakers in the world, but the warm scent of her chocolate chip cookies, the fudgyness of her chocolate cake that coats the toothy grin that never fails to appear after just one bight, and the buttery crumblies that flake off her poundcake don't just stay in the house. No. That would be for a mother with limits. Instead, they make their way across state borders to me and my friends at college and have even crossed the entire country in a package destined for my friend spending the summer in California to learn Arabic. Cooking is just a skill, though. (I'm not undermining it--believe me, just try the cake.)
Its the other traits of a "typical mother" that mine epitomizes and expands on that makes her so good at what she does. A good mother listens. My mother extends her ear across oceans, across time zones (and even into the zone meant for other mother's ears) and listens until there is nothing more to listen to. She listens to good news, bad news, and trivial news with the same interest and attention, eager to interject a word of wisdom or a helpful hint, even if it means crossing the border into some other mother's territory. Everything that she does and says is just so...motherly. So, I feel compelled to mention this when the conversation turns toward family. In describing their mothers, some of my friends start with a work title like "doctor", "lawyer", "writer", or even maybe with an adjective like "nice", "helpful", or "smart". That they have to choose makes me feel all the more privileged that I can combine all of these adjectives into one because my mother, the most motherlyist of mothers, encompasses them all.
This motherlyness is so motherly that it quite frequently comes unsolicited and in repeated waves. I'm aware of the global "be careful" refrains and the "don't forget" memos that issue from mothers worldwide, but this is often a horse of a different color. As a light example, when I was in Prague, far away from the French homestay that was far away from the Middlebury dorm that was far away from my blue bedroom, on a trip I planned just with Amie, I received an email from my mother. She didn't beg, she didn't implore, she didn't demand... she guilted. (Yes, a very motherly move.) She had looked up several internet links to make her wish as accessible to me as possible. The email, just a few paragraphs long, expressed her desire for me to "remember my roots" and visit Prague's Jewish quarter. It's not as though I had forgotten my roots. This was just a trip into another part of Prague to explore them more fully. Luckily for my mother my traveling mate was not only easy going, but also a religion major. By the end of the trip I had seen almost all of the Jewish quarter, and I had visited a synagogue outside of the quarter twice. I risk a great many things in releasing this kind of statement into cyberspace, but another reason why my mother is so darn motherly is that she was right. There were no dramatic discoveries, self-realizations, or anything of the kind, but I saw another part of Prague that I would have missed entirely had it not been for my mom and, of course, Amie. We wandered through the shocking maze of headstones jutting out from the ground and crossing over each other in a fight for space and attention. We sat down in the Old-New synagogue, the oldest, active Orthodox synagogue in Europe, and marveled at its perseverance.
We even joined the silent file of tourists studying the artwork of little children who expressed their fear and sadness of the Holocaust in drawings. If you go to Prague you should visit the Jewish section, even if your roots grow in other fields, because it's full of interesting information, weird buildings, and important history. The synagogue that we weren't able to visit is the most interesting I've seen in my life. Sadly, it wasn't open on either of the days we went to visit it. I guess I'll have to see it on the next trip to Prague.
Its the other traits of a "typical mother" that mine epitomizes and expands on that makes her so good at what she does. A good mother listens. My mother extends her ear across oceans, across time zones (and even into the zone meant for other mother's ears) and listens until there is nothing more to listen to. She listens to good news, bad news, and trivial news with the same interest and attention, eager to interject a word of wisdom or a helpful hint, even if it means crossing the border into some other mother's territory. Everything that she does and says is just so...motherly. So, I feel compelled to mention this when the conversation turns toward family. In describing their mothers, some of my friends start with a work title like "doctor", "lawyer", "writer", or even maybe with an adjective like "nice", "helpful", or "smart". That they have to choose makes me feel all the more privileged that I can combine all of these adjectives into one because my mother, the most motherlyist of mothers, encompasses them all.
This motherlyness is so motherly that it quite frequently comes unsolicited and in repeated waves. I'm aware of the global "be careful" refrains and the "don't forget" memos that issue from mothers worldwide, but this is often a horse of a different color. As a light example, when I was in Prague, far away from the French homestay that was far away from the Middlebury dorm that was far away from my blue bedroom, on a trip I planned just with Amie, I received an email from my mother. She didn't beg, she didn't implore, she didn't demand... she guilted. (Yes, a very motherly move.) She had looked up several internet links to make her wish as accessible to me as possible. The email, just a few paragraphs long, expressed her desire for me to "remember my roots" and visit Prague's Jewish quarter. It's not as though I had forgotten my roots. This was just a trip into another part of Prague to explore them more fully. Luckily for my mother my traveling mate was not only easy going, but also a religion major. By the end of the trip I had seen almost all of the Jewish quarter, and I had visited a synagogue outside of the quarter twice. I risk a great many things in releasing this kind of statement into cyberspace, but another reason why my mother is so darn motherly is that she was right. There were no dramatic discoveries, self-realizations, or anything of the kind, but I saw another part of Prague that I would have missed entirely had it not been for my mom and, of course, Amie. We wandered through the shocking maze of headstones jutting out from the ground and crossing over each other in a fight for space and attention. We sat down in the Old-New synagogue, the oldest, active Orthodox synagogue in Europe, and marveled at its perseverance.
We even joined the silent file of tourists studying the artwork of little children who expressed their fear and sadness of the Holocaust in drawings. If you go to Prague you should visit the Jewish section, even if your roots grow in other fields, because it's full of interesting information, weird buildings, and important history. The synagogue that we weren't able to visit is the most interesting I've seen in my life. Sadly, it wasn't open on either of the days we went to visit it. I guess I'll have to see it on the next trip to Prague.
I love you,
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