Hello!

Welcome to The Epic! I am launching this blog as a manifesto for and a guide to living well. The title and motto of the blog are taken from the Epicureans, at least some of whom believed in the notion that not one minute of the future was guaranteed to them and that as a result they had the duty to live life to its fullest every moment.

I believe in discovering fun and pleasurable things wherever I find myself each day and I am told I have a knack for unearthing them. My hope is that by sharing in my pleasures and some of my ways of finding them you will begin to collect all the riches that lie in the moments of your life. They are there. Take them! All our lives should be.....Epic.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Mom


She read Playboy. Dreamed up crazy themed birthday parties for my little brother and me. Wrote short stories and novel outlines. Dealt with a Swedish mother in law who couldn't see her value. Didn't cook that well but would do foods of different cultures sometimes to "broaden our horizons". Became a Cub Scout den mother because we wanted to be in scouting even though I suspect she never cared for kids that much other than her own. Quelled the usual internecine warfare between her children once it became the norm. Read to me every night.

Most of all, she gave up a pretty sophisticated life, for good, to move to the northern woods and be my mother.

One of my earliest memories is seeing her standing in the living room of our tiny home, sobbing, when we lost JFK.  I only think I saw her cry once after that. She's Irish too, you see.

Once in High School, a curmudgeonly teacher said he would let any one of us out early from class if we could just tell him where one song lyric came from.  The lyric was "I polished up the brass so carefully that now I am a member of the Queen's Navy".  My hand shot up. He smirked at me. I said "HMS Pinafore". He goggled and said "how the heck did YOU know that?"  Because my mom plays Broadway albums all winter, jerk.

I talked to her today even though she lives a long way away now. At 86, she is doing just fine, interested in everything, never met a stranger.

I told her I love her and that the "broadening horizons" thing, that worked out pretty well.

I love you, Mom.  

2 comments:

Ben said...

Well said. Everyone should have a raft of nice things to say about their mom.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. I love my mother for many of the same reasons. She's Irish, too, tempered with French Canadian.