Love & Joy

I turned into a couch potato last night and began watching “The Joy Luck Club”.

Bad move. That movie is long long long, and it will suck me in every single time.

Maybe it’s the mother and daughter theme, but the movie totally fascinates me, and makes me cry, and makes me wish I had a mom who loved me like that.

I remember when I read this book for the first time (a great read by the way). I was reading Amy Tan’s words, as I was taking the bus through the very same streets in China Town that she was describing. It made the book so real for me, her details were pretty exact. I never could put that book down.

If you have seen the movie, you know the scene where June Mae’s mother cooks her “famous crab” for the last time. June Mae and her mom get in an argument after everybody leaves, and her mom ends up by saying….”you have best quality heart, style you can’t teach….must be born this way”…then, the killer, “I SEE YOU…..I SEE YOU”…I’m sobbing at this point, each and every time I watch this movie.

Then at the end, when June Mae goes to meet her unknown sisters in China, and proclaims that she is taking he mothers place…and that it is enough, for her, and for them. That is so poignant to me. She has taken her mothers place, her mothers love, and brought that love to people who have never known it.

I was pondering on this last night, about why this scene makes me so emotional. I think it is because my own mother has never really SEEN me. She doesn’t know who I am, and I’m fairly sure, that she doesn’t really like the me she does see.

This started me thinking about my relationship with my own daughter, now I know she is only three, but now is the time to form the layers that will make up the tapestry of our relationship. I absolutely don’t want to make it dysfunctional. My daughter is hard headed, spirited and joyful. She is what people call “busy”, as in, “my, she’s a “busy” little girl”, usually with a vague tone of disapproval in their voice.

Then I have to go back in my head, and think….this fight, this spirit, this business is what pulled her through the hard times, and what will pull her through future hard times. I have no desire to squash it out of her. I want her to do her life on her terms. I like my daughter, I like who she is. I like her spirit.

I’m not sure where I’m even going with this, except it really seems to me that life does come full circle. I didn’t have a chance to have a good mother daughter relationship with my own mother, but I do have the chance to have this with my daughter.

In processing my thoughts, I find that I become more certain of some very basic things in my life. My life revolves around love, compassion, understanding and forgiveness. There is no time left for me to be bitter, resentful and angry. What is the point? What does that bring to me, my family or my friends?

Life is about the choices you make, the love you have to share, and your own ability to see your own joy.

Peace,

OC