My Mother's Thoughts I

I found a project, as if I needed more to do during Tax Season.  While sorting some of my mother's things so Dad could (eventually) repaint his bedroom, I found a bunch of old folders.  The pocket kind with colorful patterns or pictures on them.  One had a couple sheets of old notebook paper with my mother's unique, precise script.  At the top, she had simply written "Thoughts," and proceeded to list quotes that I can only assume had inspired her.  Some are familiar, like some lyrics by John Lennon, and some I had to look up.  I'd like to share these thoughts one at a time.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.


It's a quote from Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese-American poet known for The Prophet.  I found several Khalil Gibran books, including that one, while sorting books and other things when I first moved back.  What interests me most is the book's connection to 60s counterculture.  Like The Lord of the Rings, it regained popularity decades after it was first published.

Dad describes Mom as being quite conservative when they met.  But in my own conversations with her, I definitely detected a liberal streak.  I believe she called me her little hippie without any derision.  Now, she graduated from high school in 1968, a very tumultuous year, and despite my recommendation, she declined to watch the movie Bobbie because she lived through it.  I never did figure out if she picked a side, anti-war or whatever the opposite is.

Being raised in rural Ohio does tend to give one conservative leanings.  It's a sheltered childhood.  But I find that my Mom and I are very alike in that we have defied that rural stereotype, thinking independently and, by virtue of what we read and what we see, often leaning the other way.

I began with this quote because I often chide myself for talking too much.  Especially with coworkers, I feel like I need to zip it and fly under the radar.  But I am not at peace with my thoughts...they fill my head with fears and worries about work, about coordinating tax volunteers and teaching next quarter.  Like a kettle coming to boil, you've got to say something when the thoughts reach a certain temperature.

I can read it both ways.  As a reason, a rationale for speaking up, and also as a symptom, as if talking is the effect of a tempestuous mind but not necessarily the release, the cure, that I sometimes hope it is.

Either way, it's a discovery of a new connection, a philosophical link to the mind of my mother.