A Purple-Infused 80th Birthday
In which I marvel at the passage of time, birthdays, and garden metaphors.
April 15, 2024 Berkeley, Calif.
Dear Mama,
Happy 80th Birthday! Wow, time flies when you are having fun, huh? For your birthday I went to the clay studio, made myself an art cart, and went to a Sid Sriram concert. I know you would've approved. It was a full and happy day thinking about you. I also recently purchased a purple jumper in your honor. My wardrobe has begun to skew purple. I don't think I owned a purple clothing item until your decline, and now I've got multiple pairs of purple pants, a purple shirt, and purple nail polish. I just feel like wearing purple all the time because it reminds me of you.
I'm not feeling as sad these days, I guess it is more "greafulness" as you described it in your note after bringing me to college, these are 'tears of appreciation.' You have taught me so much about what to do with greafulness (See bottom image for Josie's coining of this useful word). I have been playing my favorite music over and over — also some of our favorite music (Blue, Joni Mitchell) and singing at the top of my lungs!
When I was missing you recently, I decided to dive into the archives and look for some pieces of you I had not yet seen before. Every time I read your collage-books, journal scraps and notes I find something a little bit new or different or I see something in a way I had not seen before.
I see the way you are combining found objects and photos, I see how you are adding and editing cards and quotes. I see how you recreated and refocused my eyes and I notice how much you loved cutting things up and rearranging them back together to form something different.
On your birthday a shirt arrived for me with purple butterflies. It could just be a coincidence, I did order it as part of Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser I thought you would've liked. But, I like to think it was a little butterfly of a reminder of the synchronicity we share, which also involves a noticing of details.
As I was rifling through your archives, which are now somewhat intermingled with my papers, I found my assignments from my first-year seminar Living Consciously: Philosophy in Everyday Life. One of my essays includes some quotes from an interview on your life philosophy. You said:
"Work hard, but not too much; take life seriously and always have a sense of humor; be flexible; take care of yourself in ways that keep you in good health and balance; spend time and have fun with your friends and your children. You should love your children but don't try to control them. Spend time in nature as often as possible; plant and care for a garden, even though it might be in a little box."
"Spend time in nature as often as possible; plant and care for a garden, even though it might be in a little box." — Part of Josie's philosophy of life
In my reflection on your philosophy, I ask a follow-up question, as I do not seem to be so convinced about the garden part. I asked you: Why plant and care for a garden? And you responded:
"Because a garden shows you so much about life. There is a cycle of planting and then you wait. You work the ground and plant the seed and you can't speed up the process. I feel that it's like life. Life has all these different challenges and situations that you have to figure out how to make the best of," you said.
"Then there are seasons in the garden and some plants and trees look like they have died but they have really become dormant, so they can bloom again in the spring. I just think it's a really good metaphor for life: Be patient and caring, don't expect everything to happen at once. When you plant the seed, you can't go out the next day and pick the flowers, they have to grow."
Yes, I think to myself reading back on this 20 years later, this is a good metaphor for life. Thanks Mama.
This post is part of a series of essays called Josie's House. Previous essays can be found here:
- New Beginning: In which I try to figure out how to tell people that the doctor at my mother's assisted living facility referred her to hospice care — meaning that based on her weight loss and decline, she is expected to be gone within six months.
- Mom Rocks: In which I attempt to introduce my mother and this project.
- 'Are You My Sister?': In which my Josie-mama thinks I am her sister and I find a letter my mother wrote to her sister after she died in my mother's arms.
- Mandala's Tiles and Poetry: In which I go looking for tiles in India and re-discover my mother's love of mandalas and some poetry-letters she wrote after my grandmother died.
Next in the Series:
- The Cottage and The Blue Couch: In which I share a draft of an essay about friendship, love, a cottage, and a blue couch.
- Wearing Pantsuits to Church: Values Search: In which I look at my mother's values alongside my own.
- A Dream Realized: Journey to India, 1979: In which I share a draft of an essay about my mother's first trip to India, and the next trip when she met my father.
- 'Cry Tests' & Journey to Peninsula School: In which I examine a piece of writing on how Josie got her dream job at Peninsula, thanks to the supportive community around her.
- Submerge!: In which I veer off from the aim of this newsletter and share an essay I wrote about my father's death.
- More Mandalas & Self-Acceptance Training: In which I take a deeper look into the self-acceptance work my mother did and also appreciate the beauty of a Korean spa and friendship.
- Labyrinth: Portals to Love and Other Places: In which I write to my mother and read some poems she wrote in 1987. ‘What is the matter with aloneness anyway?’ she wrote in 1987.
- Retreat to Spirit: In which, 'Are you my sister?' get's a reprise, and I ponder some wisdom from an email from 2010.
- Unexpected Gratitude for Gifts Already On Their Way: In which I receive a gift that was written and created over 35 years ago. And something that was broken gets mended.
