Stories & Secrets
This fall marks the beginning of new phases for my mother's daughters. I, myself will be moving to Philadelphia while the middle child goes away to college in Framingham and the youngest begis high school. With all the packing and preparation being done, last Wednesday, my anxious mother packed up her 3 daughters for some much needed quality time in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Along with hiking on trails, swimming in rivers and sun bathing by the hotel pool, the three days were more importantly spent talking to and listening to each other. Telling stories and secrets, laughing too loud, giving un-asked for advice and eating too much ice cream!
Driving through Lincoln that first morning, surrounded by trees and mountains while Sergio Mendes and Bebel Gilberto set the storytellers stage, I listened to my mother unravel tales of growing up skinny and nappy in Haiti... of catching lizards and frogs for fun, of picking mangos off trees... of her longing to be Home again.
The next afternoon in the hotel room was time for girl talk. While painting each other's nails, we giggled over the discovery that my 13 year old sister has already kissed 3 boys (!), and gagged at my poor mother's dilemma: how to get busy with her husband without her kids overhearing... (GROSS!). With tough love that can only come from sisters and moms, we prepped my sweet, naive, slightly air head of a 18 year old sister for college and mom gave her "You're too fly to be dealing with this mess!" talk to her eldest.
Our last night in New Hampshire was spent laughing. The kind of laugh you can only have with family. The kind of laugh where tears stream down, your face hurts, the belly hangs out and a fart or two might sneak away. We ordered Chinese and bought Corona's (for my mom and I), we watched Spiderman, played Rumi and made up our own version of Charades (my mom's enactment of "Beauty and the Beast" still has me cracking up!).
On the drive home Saturday morning, (this time to the soundtrack of Beres Hammond and Bob Marley) I reflected on how blessed I am that my best friends, my support system, my shoulder to cry on, my personal fan club are all related to me.
Along with hiking on trails, swimming in rivers and sun bathing by the hotel pool, the three days were more importantly spent talking to and listening to each other. Telling stories and secrets, laughing too loud, giving un-asked for advice and eating too much ice cream!
Driving through Lincoln that first morning, surrounded by trees and mountains while Sergio Mendes and Bebel Gilberto set the storytellers stage, I listened to my mother unravel tales of growing up skinny and nappy in Haiti... of catching lizards and frogs for fun, of picking mangos off trees... of her longing to be Home again.
The next afternoon in the hotel room was time for girl talk. While painting each other's nails, we giggled over the discovery that my 13 year old sister has already kissed 3 boys (!), and gagged at my poor mother's dilemma: how to get busy with her husband without her kids overhearing... (GROSS!). With tough love that can only come from sisters and moms, we prepped my sweet, naive, slightly air head of a 18 year old sister for college and mom gave her "You're too fly to be dealing with this mess!" talk to her eldest.
Our last night in New Hampshire was spent laughing. The kind of laugh you can only have with family. The kind of laugh where tears stream down, your face hurts, the belly hangs out and a fart or two might sneak away. We ordered Chinese and bought Corona's (for my mom and I), we watched Spiderman, played Rumi and made up our own version of Charades (my mom's enactment of "Beauty and the Beast" still has me cracking up!).
On the drive home Saturday morning, (this time to the soundtrack of Beres Hammond and Bob Marley) I reflected on how blessed I am that my best friends, my support system, my shoulder to cry on, my personal fan club are all related to me.
posted by Marly @ 4:58 PM
1 Comments:
At 12:02 PM,
Anonymous said…
yeeeeeeessssssss
flo
Post a Comment
<< Home