Today on the longest day of the year, I wore my raincoat to walk the dog. This year’s summer solstice is a welcome wet green day. Today’s rain soaked walks reminded me of a photo of Zoë and my mother in raincoats in Maine. My parents taught us to always have good rain gear so that no matter the weather we could get out and enjoy the day. I have talked to several old friends and relatives this week who all have such fond memories of my parents and the magical way my brothers and I were raised. It’s as if mom and dad carried umbrellas that allowed us to grow in idiosyncratic creative directions. A recent visitor saw my father’s sculptures in our house and she said, “oh that’s where you got your talent.” I thought to myself, no that’s where I got the permission to make the things I dream of. As a kid I danced until the downstairs neighbors complained. Stephen played the drums. Shawn wrote songs and played every instrument he could get his hands on. Nick was ready to play every sport. Each of us filled sketchbooks as a form of breathing.
The Raincoat
When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.
–Ada Limón, in The Carrying: Poems, Milkweed Editions
3 replies on “# 21 summer shards”
Thank you for another inspirational solstice accrual to the zenith of time’s passing! We are small creatures in the whole scheme of our celestial transitions, yet the power of your art and shared experiences bring us to witness the orbital translation together!!
Pooof !! yes ! went the little cartoon cloud over my cartoon head when I read … “ My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.”
The humble selfless power of a (my) mother’s love embodied in a raincoat
Thank goodness for those raincoats!