She'd been there all night, chatting up hookers and street people, sketching their wizened faces and slackened bodies, spouting her motherwit and learning a few new tricks. In my mother's world, everything, especially fear, was her teacher. To her, life was a process of uncovering sinister secrets to befriend them. I suppose the bright artist smocks and red lipstick, the unbridled laughter and optimism, the brief stint with clowning and long investigation of mysticism would look irrational to staid, more conventional minds. I trust that her butterfly soul knew exactly how long it had to soar into its own ether.
Separation is one of attachment's conditions.
I called, watching the shadows of our big black cherry tree flash against the ceiling and walls of my dim bedroom. Always, without complaint, her face would peek from behind my door. Always, she would refit the corners of the sheets that smelled freshly of sky from drying on the line all day. That way, the monster beneath my bed could not grab my feet. Her hands on my cheeks, I gazed up into her hazel eyes, the fine freckles of her summer face, the utter peace and security of her person.