For the Child Inside:

The Mother

I

A young woman was tending her garden when she found a small piece of wood. She held the wood in her hand, turning it carefully. She could see something magical in the wood but could not tell what it was. The wood spoke silently to her saying, “I am before I am.”

Mother in Garden

The woman took the wood into her home and held it and looked at it and rocked it in her favorite chair. One day she began to see what it might be. With her sharpest knife she began to carefully and gently carve it. After many days and nights without sleep, the woman set the carving aside. She knew what it was and she knew the wood no longer needed her knife to shape it. The woman had made a boat with a mast to reach for the stars and a sail to catch the wind and a strong hull to withstand the storms. The woman was proud of her work. She cleared off the mantle over her fireplace and put the tiny boat where she could see it when she was in the room.

Years went by and the woman continued to tend her garden, eating the best produce herself and selling the rest in the village. Even though she kept the best for herself, her customers were quite happy with the produce she sold them; often remarking that she was the best gardener around. At the end of the day, she would sit in her rocking chair and admire her little boat. Although gardening was what she was known for, really good at, she always felt the boat was the best she had to give. It was her pride and joy. Gardening, that was her job, but this carving was her soul made concrete.

II

One day, it was a Saturday so there was no garden work, the woman’s sister stopped by for a visit. She brought her daughter with her, a five-year-old named Tonya.

Tonya

Tonya had never been to her aunt’s house. All the visiting had gone the other way with the woman carrying her best produce to family gatherings held at other relatives homes. For reasons none of us understands, the woman’s sister decided on the spur of the moment to make a visit and to take Tonya with her. The woman wasn’t used to entertaining and at first was flustered by what to do with these visitors. Her sister however was very comfortable with visiting and visitors and took charge, putting a kettle on for tea and asking for a tour of the garden. The woman gave the tour and the three of them returned to the house for tea. She was feeling quite proud and almost happy that her sister had come to visit and see her garden when Tonya spotted the boat on the mantel. Tonya said, “Oh auntie, auntie, let me play with the boat.”

Well, the woman was shocked! Play with the boat? Play? Tonya was jumping up and down by now, pointing to the boat and squealing, “Please auntie, please, please, please.”

Before she could censor herself and in the most severe voice she possessed the woman said, “That is not a toy. That is not for playing. You may not ever touch that boat.”

Tonya did not understand that at all. Even the woman’s sister did not understand it. Tonya began to cry, not so much from the woman’s words as from the tone of those words. The woman’s sister said, “Why is that tiny boat so precious?”

The woman had never really thought about that so her answer came unrehearsed and from the heart. “That boat is my soul. It is the best I have ever done. It is the best of me.”

Mother's house

“But sister, your garden is the best of you. Everyone says so.”

“No,” the woman replied, “This boat is as dear to me as Tonya is to you. It is my creation from my self.”

The sister had always known that the woman was a little different, but she was her sister and her love was borne of many years of knowing and accepting. If this was the woman’s creation, like a child, then so be it. She would honor it.

“I understand.” The sister turned to Tonya and said, “That little boat is not a toy. It is art, a creation of auntie’s that is not to be played with. Do you understand?”

Tonya was five and her life was still pretty concrete and literal. She shook her head yes, she understood, but she said, “Auntie, can I watch you sail the boat?”

The woman responded, “I don’t sail it. It has never sailed.”

And Tonya, the literal, replied, “Then it isn’t really a boat because it has never done what boats do.”

The sister could see the woman’s face grow pale and she knew from years of knowing her sister that the paleness was a sign of a serious wound. She didn’t understand the wound and she was used to Tonya just saying it like it is so it didn’t bother her at all, but the woman was hurt and she didn’t want the hurt to be more than it already was. So she said to Tonya, “The boat is art. It doesn’t do anything but it is still a boat.”

Tonya, feeling more comfortable because of her mother’s comforting words, the tone, not the words, said, “Then what good is it?”

The sister could see this was getting nowhere and decided the best course was to retreat. She thanked the woman for a lovely visit, for the tour of the gardens, for the tea, for everything except the boat. The boat she did not mention. She gathered up their wraps, her purse, and Tonya and said, “Let’s do this again, soon.” But she thought, “not bloody likely.” Off she went leaving the woman speechless.

III

The woman was lost in a flood of thoughts and realizations and hardly noticed their departure. She looked at the boat and spoke aloud, “I never meant for you to be art. I heard you speak before you were made, telling me how to make you. I made you and I have kept you right there, trapped since that day when I put down my whittlers knife and said it is done. You are not art. You are my child. It doesn’t matter that you are a boat. You are my child. It is wrong for me to not let you be a boat!”

Letting go

With a heavy heart but a certain and proud soul, the woman took the little boat from the mantle and headed for the village, which was next to an ocean. She looked out on the harbor and thought, “The water is much too deep here.” She walked away from the harbor full of piers and other boats and headed towards a sandy, isolated beach. But when she got there, she shook her head “no” because the waves were too rough. So she walked further until she found a small inlet with trees and water plants. “This” she thought, “will be safer.”

She knelt beside the brackish water and placed the boat at the edge of the water. The boat did not move. So the woman leaned over until her face touched the ground and with all of the strength she had, she blew upon the tiny sail. Soon the boat moved slowly away from the shore. The woman continued to blow until she was gasping for breath. Finally, the boat was far enough from the shore to catch its own breeze. It moved faster and faster away from the woman, down the inlet and towards the ocean. Long after the woman could no longer see her boat, she stood by the shore, sad and joyful tears falling silently.

IV

Many more years passed. The woman began to wither and with her, so too her garden. A great war was upon the world and the woman was often hungry and afraid. She couldn’t always get the seeds she needed for her garden, water was scarce, and fertilizer did not exist. All of the things she needed for her remarkable garden were scarce or gone. But the truth is, from the day she let the little boat go, the woman was ruled by a sadness that neither seed, nor water, nor fertilizer could overcome. Even without a war and scarcity, her garden would have withered along with her soul.

One day the woman went to the shore where she had let her tiny boat go. The shore was now a giant shipping pier. The woman watched the tugs bring the huge ships in and take them back to sea. While watching this busy enterprise, the woman heard someone calling, “Mother, mother it is me.” She looked up and saw a huge cruise ship.

Little Boat All Grown Up

The woman could not see over the bow or around the bulging sides to the stern. Again she heard, “Mother, it is me” and it seemed to be coming from the ship. She stared in disbelief, thinking someone was tricking her but again the voice said, “Mother it is me, your little boat all grown up.”

The woman gasped. How could it be? She must be mad. But she knew she wasn’t and she knew it was her little boat. She spoke silently with the boat as it spoke with her. “But how did you get so big, she asked?”

“I’ve sailed many places and the more I saw and learned, the more I grew. I am everything you made of me and so much more.”

The woman knew that what the ship said was true and suddenly she felt very small and afraid. In her small fear she could not see the ship for what it was but only for what it was not. She could not feel it was hers anymore and speaking from her small lost place she said, “Why are you a cruise ship? Don’t you know there is a war? Where are your guns? We need a war ship?”

first the ship felt ashamed, then angry. She waited quietly while these painful feelings passed and the said, “I am that I am. I am no good for fighting. I tried that and was seduced by the big guns, the pride, the importance of my work. But in my heart I knew I was no warship. So I followed my heart and became a cruise ship. Now when people need to dream, or relax, or venture to the unknown places, they come to me. When old lovers need to be alone again, they come to me. It is the best that I am.

The woman heard this but she missed the little boat, had missed it for years, so she said, “I gave you life. I set you free. I have lived dreaming of you. The least you could do is grow up into someone who could protect me. I have no need of dreams or foolish lover’s. I am hungry and afraid. Who has time for dreams?”

“But mother, I was your dream. You saw a boat in me and with your sharpest knife, made me. Can’t you see yourself in the same way and with the same faith and patience, carve yourself.

You gave me sails to catch the wind

You gave me a mast always pointing to the stars. Raise your arms and eyes and find your own stars. You gave me sails to catch the wind, to move away from the shore. Breathe that same freedom into yourself, and you will go where you need to go. You made my hull strong so I could withstand the worst of the storms. Find that strength in yourself so you can withstand your own journey. You did not make me to be you. You must be you.”

The woman heard these words but they stung. She turned her back on her boat and said, “You have deserted me in my time of greatest need. I will die and you will be entertaining lovers.”

These words were most difficult for the ship to hear and she was tempted to give up her life and beg her mother for love and understanding. Again, she waited for the pain of her mother’s disappointment and despair to pass. When she found her voice and courage again she replied, “Mother, be sure, when the day really comes that you cannot carry yourself, I will be here to carry you away from danger. But to do so before you need it dishonors us both. I have as much faith in your abilities as you had in mine. Find your own way and then find me.” With those words said, the ship prayed they were not wrong and arrogant, she prayed her mother would not drop dead before her on the pier. “Please mother,” she begged, “find your own way…and find me.”

The mother was shaken but the busy pier rested for no one. Before she could respond to her daughter, the tugboats blasted their signals to let loose the lines that held the cruise ship fast. The mother watched as the ship swung around and headed out to sea. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard the cruise ship say just before it was out of range, “Mother, come find me.”

V

There is a tale that is told of a cruise ship on the blue ocean that is accompanied by a flying dragon. They appear to be friends and appear to be talking. But that’s just a tale, another tale at that, and we don’t believe in tales…do we?

Dedicated to my mother, Miss Victory, 1943