weapons of massdistraction

Earlier I was crying while making dinner. I hadn’t planned to. Or expected to. I’d been happily listening to a re-broadcast on MPR of a recent Neil Gaiman talk. He is my favorite storyteller and I have seen/heard him give many such talks in the past, covering much of the same material. But it struck a chord when he spoke of his father’s sudden death. And there I was, getting weepy at the kitchen sink, thinking about my brother and the date one week from now. (Sure, I may be extra hormonal right now - gee, thanks PMS! - but I’m not about to sign up for mymonthlycycles.com.) Why on earth does Mother’s Day have to coincide with the anniversary of my brother’s death? Either annual event is painful enough on its own but the combo really packs a wallop. I’ve been estranged from my biological mother for nearly half of my life and have maintained an overly complicated relationship with my step-mother for nearly 3/4 of my life. Because of such tenuous bonds I never planned to become a mother myself. But when I first learned I was pregnant with the now not-so-little man…part of me felt that by bringing a new member of the Morrow clan into the world I would be, in some strange way, replacing my brother. In hindsight I fully admit I was lonely at the time. Though it has worked out as (un)planned. In my son I do have a creative, artistic companion who shares many of my interests…and my father’s dominant genes. But I am still his mother more than a friend, with all the responsibility that entails. And as a mostly single mother for the long haul, there really isn’t anyone to celebrate me on this odd holiday. But I wouldn’t want there to be. I’ll be too preoccupied with remembering my brother.

In more upbeat news, our weekend was fairly pleasant. Battles were waged against entropy and bureaucracy with many small victories to be claimed. And we enjoyed our Free Comic Book Day at The Source and had a creative dinner guest who drew an amusingly angry, homicidal teapot for us. This morning I snapped a self-portrait for the “Moment in Time” NY Times mosaic. And this afternoon we ventured forth to the Heart of the Beast May Day celebrations, as we often do, but held back a bit. Admiring the event from atop a hill rather than getting down into the thick of things was a-ok. We needed a slightly mellow weekend as the week ahead promises to be delightfully action-packed.