My Turn
by Sabrina Santa Clara

Mother on the Beach

Mother on the beach
              her yellow and white floppy
K-Mart hat
             sheltering her
  Iowa pale skin
     and I resenting
her looking out of place
  between my friends
            around
               young bronzed men
  thinking I was much too old
                  to be chaperoned.

  How quickly I've forgotten
       when fifty yards was
  a world apart
        crying unashamedly as only
  three-year-olds can
       The horror not yet fading
  as I saw
        Mamma running in her muumuu
  and me running into softness;
             The heat of her sunburnt face
                  the warmth of my tears
  how grateful I was then
     Mother was with me
                            on the beach -

  When did I learn to become
                 so ashamed of my Mother?

 I wrote this back in the late 80's when I was actively dealing with all my mother issues on an almost daily basis. Unfortunately, like most issues, the mother issue gets recycled from time to time.

Most often I approach my issues with my mother from a psychological perspective, but lately I've been wondering "how do what I feel and think about my birth mother relate to my relationship with my Earth Mother?" For example, if I couldn't depend on my birth mother to protect me from the evils of the world, is it really so surprising that I find it difficult to trust that Gaia will care for me well? Just something to think about….