Roadrunner's tiny mohawk and Tribute 2

I love the female people in my life more than the Gemini brain that spins on these shoulders of mine can put into words.
It is a beautiful thing.
I also love food, my children, and all things related to "pleasure" - which- for today - will stay in the arena of sister-friends, food, and my daughter.

For this beloved Food Lovolution Fortress being laid brick by brick (word by word), I ask this question -
How do I possibly move with ease and grace through everyday motherhood, work, and every meal I put in my mouth? Anyone? Anyone?
MY Answer - the females in my life move me through.

Today is a tribute to Food of the last 20 years in being seen through belly laughs and belly cries, and my college roommate Janice.
She commented on my last blog....and I just laughed reading it.

Here's the turn on story:

I began collaborating today with a delicious woman on what started as a " health workshop", and became a potential grief ritual for a house of people living amidst many big stories of old suffering and loss. Today I listened to the words of my teacher Sobonfu Some, on the importance of honoring our loss and everyday deaths, as women, together.
Today I finally broke down and called a "nurses' hotline" for a 2 year long roving pain that travels from the top of my head to the base of my spine, and culminated in a momentary flash of "am I dying?"
Today I was told by the "hotline" nurse that, 'no', I probably don't have a tumor or degenerative Lyme disease, but probably do want to get a x-ray, because it "sounds like" my "lifestyle choices" (old-fashioned-neck-cracking-chiropractic-visits-from-the-'90s + 15 years of African and ecstatic-spasomatic-dance) might have "compromised the integrity of my vertebral cartiledge."

Do you hear the humor amidst seriousness?

Today, my day ended with the re-membering of my friendship with Janice - a perfectly imperfect first-time-knitted scarf:
you love it, you wear it, it's lopsided, and too ventilated,
and it's oh so complete.

My friendship with Janice is a complete woven masterpiece of exquisite foibles and victories.
We became women together.
We had our hearts broken for the first-time by men, as women, together.
We competed silently with each other, together.
We won and lost big "games" in Life side by side, together.
And
we have become spouses and mothers apart, and then together.

Blogging about it almost seems trite,
and, at the same time
I am humbly aware of the privilege to do so,
and the importance of it.

I have no biological sister,
and my childhood was full of moving from place to place.
Janices' is a friendship that spans 20+ years chosen sisterhood.
She met me with huge permed hair, a perma-unitard of deep irredescent blue - which I wore religiously - because I did aerobics in this outfit.... religiously....
and she watched me fight hard, many times, to "get it right"....whatever "it" was at the time.
And, in between and underneath all our loss and gain and loss and gain of 20+ years,
runs a current of unbelievable Holy Sacred Sister Foolishness.

Today, I was double-whammied with this gift,
via her friendship
and of course
mothering my daughter.

Today I was reminded of
a few years ago when Janice was a new mom, working outside the home like crazy,
working to find her husband's "perfection" amidst new parenthood,
and trying to get pregnant again,
and her sister died. It sucked. It sucked bigtime. No words can describe how much it sucked.
I drove to her and we did a grief ritual.
The healing from the grieving was good good.
Yet, what I remember most was afterward.
I had selected uplifting music to "clear the space".
I had seleced a 70's R&B remix, complete with a groovy beat and happy happy lyrics. The moment I put it on had only been 15 minutes from closing the grief circle.
Out of the depths of our past Janice busted out her finest Foxy Brown- James Brown lovechild voice
and shouted
"I remember this song from your dance class. You were 8 month pregnant and wearing some psychedelic leotard.
You looked just like the Partridge Family bus!"

This is my Holy Fool Food which I cannot live without:
The sustenance of knowing that none of Life is ever too serious
to forget that laughter is the closest bedfellow of suffering.
Amidst her suffering she made me laugh.... so hard.
Janice has been a cornerstone of my re-membering this, as she fiercely commits to making the richness of the Soul accessible to everyone - through her work and how she lives her life.
That's just what she does.

After a day of serious woman business and serious mom business today, it was great to be reminded of this.

And then, it was topped off tonight, when my wisest butt-kicking Buddha-teacher told me she had brushed her teeth and was ready for her bedtime story.

As I slipped into my daughter's room quietly, she sat waiting in her Cindy Lou Who red footy pajamas, and Bread and Jam for Francis in her lap.
I had completed another full day of modern-mom juggling,
found out from the nurses' hotline that I wasn't going to die,
and my prize waited for me with big eyes, red fleece and a bedtime book.
So, what's this super-sensitive mom to do?
Cry.
And in return my daughter looked at me, rolled her eyes, giggled, and said
"Mama, not again. I'm going to make you laugh"
( I smiled through tears, and reminded her they were happy tears)
And she said
"You need to watch Bugs Bunny mama. It's so funny.
Road Runner has a tiny mohawk,
Yosemite Sam has cute tiny green underwear...."
(she smiles to me, and I smile back, bigger)
and she adds
"and I have a tiny butt." (she laughs loud)
"I don't know what to tell ya, but it's all pretty funny."

Today I bless the Holy Fool Food.
Another brick is laid.