As I roused myself to get up this morning, I remembered a snippet of a dream. That I was comparing my slender (thin) legs to my mother’s, and deciding hers were thinner (skinnier) even though other people were saying they were the same. Thinking about this strange image, I remembered the phrase “not a leg to stand on” and remembered how I feel posting thoughts in an on-line journal, not knowing who will read it (or if) or if it is a thought that can stand on it’s own. And the thought: “stand on your own two legs”, i.e., not my mother’s, that I am doing what I am doing, something new, something old, something borrowed, maybe blue/red/pink/green. And why should I care what other people say about my legs compared to my mother’s, or is it just me (forever) comparing myself to what is “out there”.
Do you remember the children’s book Are You My Mother, in which a little bird falls out of the nest and goes around asking all the animals if they are his mother? Do we fall out of the nest and spend the rest of our lives looking for our mother, looking for reassurance? The little bird finds his mother at the end of the book (of course) and all is well (for him). But eventually he will have to fly off on his own.
Posted by leya at February 8, 2004 09:00 AM