The Struggles That Are Worth It, and the Ones We Leave Behind

The other night, I read the description of the back of a person’s hands looking like "crumpled waxed paper" in a book I was reading.  It made me think of my mother.

I haven’t remembered the faces of my parents since I was a teenager. Only their hands. My father’s dull gold wedding ring, and the dark hairs sprouting out from below his knuckles.

(pause)

This season has been one of excavation.

The house is gone (not gone, but not “ours”), and there was only one box I chose to send to myself. I always imagined that I would fill boxes. But there was nothing remaining of me, and my parents had largely been strangers. 

In the end, it was a standard sized, singular moving box. 

Unjustifiably large. 

Its contents wobbling heavily back and forth within it.



be well; be loved,

k.


(photo: Head Lock, Luke Smalley, 1998)
(description of the back of a person’s hand is not an exact quote because I’m too lazy to look it up, but was from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner’s book, Kabbalah: A Love Story)