Musings
A bi-weekly column for The Richmond Review newspaper. It appears every second Saturday.
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My mother awaits.
This column appeared in The Richmond Review January 7, 2006.
My mother and I don't always see eye to eye.
She wants me married - with just one child even. She does, after all, have eight grandchildren already.
Whereas I like to think big thoughts (and often many little thoughts: Could a spider flushed down the toilet come back up when you're least expecting it? Why are women who have more body fat always cold, while men can go out in the dead of winter without a jacket?) and dream big dreams, my mother is practical, believing I would be much better off had I pursued a sensible career in, say, accounting.
Numbers is something she understands. You can count them and on them; numbers make up the realities of life.
I, however, didn't take the sure and straight highway where the scenery doesn't change for miles around. I was taking detours and back roads - much to the consternation of my mother. Once, to make a point, I told her that perhaps I would never marry. She stopped in mid-sentence looking at me as if I had grown a second head. That was when I decided that perhaps I shouldn't be making such points with my mother.
So over the years, I've nodded to her many suggestions and balked at her sometimes shameless tactics to get me back on track - as if somehow getting married were like going grocery shopping; those single and compatible marked with the red tag special.
She's tried not-so-subtle interventions: I just saw (fill in the blank)'s parents the other day. He's single. She's tried to scare me: You better get married before it's too late! She has even reached into that mother's arsenal of impeccably timed guilt: If you were married, I wouldn't worry so much about you.
But over the holidays, I witnessed a miracle - a Christmas miracle. I caught my mother, who normally reads newspapers in her native Korean language, reading the Richmond Review from cover to cover. She was looking for my column. When she sees me, she carefully notes how it requires deep reflection to write out one's thoughts.
I smile. It's a validation, I think, of what I do as a writer. How the right phrasing, flow of words and ideas, can turn an observation into a small truth that resonates with the reader. Bring perspective to an endless stream of numbers.
My mother finally understands me. She respects what I do. She tells me to make sure I leave out the paper every time my column is published. It really is a Christmas miracle.
Yes, my mother continues. This is very smart. You know, men will read this column. Maybe you'll meet your husband this way.