Today's is The Riches of Solitude
I adore being alone - it's how I recharge - and I'm never bored as I always have books, music, art to entertain me... the option of doing stuff for a while, and then just be-ing at other times :)
But sadly my mother never knew 'the riches of solitude' - she hated it, feared it, she was never happy or content in her own company...
This is one of my favourite photos of her taken in the early 1960s when she was still a teenager. Look at how elegant and poised she looks, but also a little sad...
I find this image so poignant, as I know how she struggled with mental illness throughout her life... Before she was 20, she was a wife and a mother, and I sense she just didn't have the resources (inner or outer) to explore solitude... to explore herself, and her own rich wisdom...
She was a difficult and demanding person, and I grieve for my lost childhood, but I look at this photo and I grieve also for the lost potential in this young woman... the lost riches of her aloneness...
What a poignant photo and reflections. I think it can be really hard to look back at difficult parents with compassion, but it is SO important.
ReplyDeleteBlessings to you.
Thank you, Molly :)
DeleteMy mother died in 2000, aged 55, and as I grow closer to that age, I find I can finally see her with compassion and more understanding...