The mama

Erminia, my Italian landlord/housemate, says that when the father dies he floats away a little at a time like a boat on the sea until you can't feel him anymore; but that the mama is part of you and so you will miss her less.  When you are peeing and look down at your legs, at your nakedness, at your hands you will see your mother, she will be there in your form until you don't exist either, so you will never feel separate from her.

And we three sit at the table listening, my mama to my left, and Naya across from me, Erminia at the fourth seat.  & I am happy that the mama is here.  She is calming to me today.  And as this is/has been rare I sit by it and notice.  Though three inches shorter, the mama has my hands, my eyelashes, my frame, my curves, my way of looking down or out the window instead of always at the eyes, my tendency toward a chill, my escalation of laughing until others think 'geez, what's so funny,' my way of holding a fork, wanting endlessly more of life, etc.  The mama is here.  & Naya's helixed strands revel and pirouette in all the same.

& for fear of over-sentimentality, an image of another story I was once told by someone else with a heavy accent comes to mind--about the idea that when a shark swims in the water it watches for the electricity, and when a person gets in the water the shark sees the electricity, and is shocked by the person's electricity, and the shark need only follow that electrical bolt to find the person (refer back to row boat painting).

No matter the subject or content I'm a sucker for a good story in a heavy accent told with conviction, eye-contact, and precise pausing for effect.  And at least one of these stories is at least partly true, but probably they are both all the way true if you hear them in the right way.

Unrelated post script--if you want to explore truly how far you want/ are willing to go with amplifying your internal world (ie presencing, mindfulness) read Samuel Beckett's Murphy because one way of reading it is to see it as an exploration of how magnified we opt to make the external world we walk in versus the internal world we are.  Tell me about it if you do read it.