On My Birthday - With Gratitude

It's the start of a new year for me: yesterday was my birthday and I am now 33! From yesterday's compositions:…

Given my propensity to look to the ancients for inspiration, their features blurred and idealized with the passage of time, I always feel that it is also a wonderful thing to look for inspiration and things to admire in people with whom I interact personally and see in sharp focus.

Today, on my birthday, as on all my birthdays for many years, I focus my thoughts intentionally and with gratitude upon someone whom I have come to view as a potent inspiration in her own right.

I was my mother's first child and it wasn't an easy birth. I'm sure I wasn't the easiest child ever raised either, and of course it is inevitable that in the course of my growing up I occasioned pain, heartache, anxiety, disappointment and frustration. Of course I acted as most adolescents do, and went through my years of rejecting both my parents in my attempts to discover my own identity. (For the record, I don't think that I ended up with any better an idea of who I am as a result of that.)

I am glad to be able to say that this, too, passed; and that for close to a decade now, I have felt close to and appreciative of my parents. But when I think of my mother, on this day when I turn 33, and consider how much I have changed, moved, grown over the years, I have to acknowledge that in the portion of her life for which I have known her, my mum has undertaken some remarkable changes in her own right.

She has, in fact, redefined and recreated herself: many aspects of her character with which I found fault as a teenager are totally gone. She used to be afraid to travel: now she has traveled to India, California, Hawaii, as well as her frequent trips to Israel to care for my grandmother and visit family. She used to lament the fact that my father doesn't like to go out to shows, exhibitions, etc, and feel it as a prevention against her own going. Now, she goes by herself, or with girlfriends - and the several close and sweet friendships that she now enjoys are a part of this blossoming themselves. She used to be uncertain as to what she was doing with her life and vaguely unsatisfied, which seemed to manifest in excessive concern about the minutiae of the rest of her family's lives (an easy judgment for a teenager to make!). But when she was already over 50 years old, she went back to school to train to become a homeopath, thus validating her life-long interest in holistic healing. Once qualified as a homeopath, she studied for a nutritionist's qualification also.

My mum now holds her family together as she did before, and is kind and helpful to neighbors and friends as before, but she also has lots of fun nowadays, and she helps so many people! It has always seemed very clear to me from listening to her stories of people she's helped that a big part of the reason why she is so good as a healer is that she is so passionate about it! She really believes in the efficacy of what she is doing, and she recognizes the importance of listening to a person fully, rather than just taking down symptoms.

It is so inspiring to me that she takes such delight in this work, and that she has been able to have such a positive impact on many people's lives. She has found a path that is so fulfilling to her and that also brings her joy and helps other people - instantiating my 'core belief' that when we are at our best, it is also for the best of the universe. No one can ever guess my mum's age from looking at her: they're often out by over a decade. She often says that she still feels just like she did when she was 16.

I am so grateful for her fulfillment: selfishly in part - it is good not to feel like your parents' happiness depends on you! But more than that, I feel honored and grateful to have been born as a part of this person's life. When I look at the ways in which my mother has transformed herself and expanded my life, it makes it harder for me to devalue and wish away my own life, and reminds me of that shining harmony of 'being in the flow,' doing what you love to the best benefit of the universe, to which I aspire.

Mummy, thank you so much, with much love.