Mom

Near closing time on a late March evening, in an almost empty restaurant, I sat there with mom, who by then was completely frustrated with my habit of quick flings with California. Believing she actually had a moment with me to herself may have seemed too surreal, not that she would ever let me think so.  

If only I could fit all the necessary catching up into the neat ten day intervals in which I found myself there anymore. I could finally feel justified in all the things I imagined coming back to, instead of seeing them as the guilty pleasures of an embellished past. California is the imaginary place that I idolize and adore. The home I gratuitously boast about being from, and am not deserving of.  

It's the way I think of home as the place that I'm always leaving behind and never coming back to. Anything more than a visit to this place would just bring out all the ugliness that exists in everywhere I stop and look for it. The way we embrace and depart so impersonally, perceiving life as effortless, soon it's all a memory. I see California as a case study of my life. Being able to both cherish and reject all the things I despise and urge to change about myself can be found here. The weaknesses and imperfections that validate the uniqueness and fragility in each one of us have a  way of floating to the surface, granting us humility. These are mine. There's no sphere of control over events that mold us into the people we are, I truly beleive that. The average moments are the ones not worth holding onto, not fantastic enough to stand out amongst an endless series.  Some though, resonate on a more personal level, stretching beyond practicality and usefulness, that night at the restaurant was one of those.  

We ought to so warmly regard and identify with our most desperate and intimidating moments, realizing the beauty and emotion they elicit. It's the way we pause and feel the time as it washes over us, never growing old and never wanting to. As if we could live everyday reciting the mantra of treating life as it comes; as single day. As if we could sit solemnly there at the table, and as if being the only two people in the place meant our food was practically waiting for us when we sat down. As if that prolonged grace period hadnt led me to tell her precisely how I was going to contribute to the world over the next ten to twelve years. And what if she didnt, for once, hold in her complete confidence the direction and conviction of my most vivid dreams. I love my life, not necessarily for what it is, but what it will be, and what I believe it can become...