Mothers

This is a blogpost off the beaten embroidery path.  This is the only picture that I have of 4 generations of strong Italian women.  Or at least 3 if you don't count me.  My greatgrandmother is sitting in the fancy chair, my grandmother Lucy, is behind a 16 year old me and right in front is my mother Phyllis.  All four of us have had our trials and tribulations.  My great grandmother came here from Italy, she was married a couple of times and both her husbands died. 

When my grandmother was a child, my greatgrandmother could not take care of all her children on her own so my grandmother was put in an orphanage.  My grandmother had a bit of a attittude which resulted in terrible treatment while she was in the orphanage.  She told of a story where the nuns shaved a circle around her head because she talked back to a nun.  That must have been so traumatic for a young girl to be treated in such a way in a place she had no escape from.  She eventually went back to live with her mother and proceeded to get married at 16 to a gentleman I never knew who  was a merchant marine.  He would get my grandmother pregnant, go back out to sea, come home and get her pregnant again, and go back out to sea.And once more he got my grandmother pregnant and went back out to sea.  She left him after that, and he left her with three children, my mother Phyllis, my Aunt Madeline and my Uncle Ralph.  My mother being the oldest. My grandmother was one of the most loving outspoken people I have ever met.  She married my grandfather when my mother ws 10 and he was a wonderful father and a wonderful grandfather.  She hit the lottery when she married him.

I've talked about my mother before, she was a beautiful nurturing person that could talk to anyone and always listened.  Everyone loved her, she was also an artist as mentioned before and yes another outspoken woman, stronger than many people I've ever known.  She had to overcome the death of a child and a car accident that left my father in a hospital for a year all in the same year.  But she threw herself into being Anthony and myself's mother.  And we grew up to be incredible people in our own right.  Neither of us did drugs, perhaps we drank a little recreationally and we basically are very nice kind people with lots of friends.  Facebook is a daily reminder of just how lucky I was to have the friends I've had in my lifetime.

Then comes me. I've had an exceptionally hard life which you can read about somewhere in my blog.  I never really could ever just relax because something horrible was always around the corner. The last few weeks have been no exception.  I felt like I had everything.  I finally accepted being an artist, I found my focus and became a hand embroidery artist and have my work  all over upstate NY.  That is so wonderful really.  I love living in upstate NY, it is just the greatest place for me to live. I have a son who is the reason I wake up in the morning I have the greatest friends a girl could ask for. I get to embroider for a living and well the rest is a little bit unsettling.  I am going through my change of life, battling insomnia, doing some soul work, trying to get a business started and trying to embroider all my troubles away.

Somewhere on my journey I took a wrong turn.  I could say it is the internet's fault because I have been twittering the lead singer of the band that has been living in my head.  I could say it's hormonal because I am in the midst of a month long period.  I could say it's lack of sleep because for several weeks I barely slept at all, or I could just say that things aren't exactly peachy keen in my home life. I really wish someone would come up on a white horse  and take me away.  But perhaps it is just that I don't know how to be happy without screwing it up or waiting for the last shoe to drop.

I thought I had everything I needed to move forward and basically the last month or two has been a cry for help mixed in with a lot of beautiful moments.  I thought I healed everything going on in my soul and my heart and yet I am filled with the despair, that I am back in that hole with only a hand sticking out.  I've made quite a few bad choices in the last few weeks, the last few months and the last few years, perhaps my whole life.  I guess this post is a period to a never ending saga.  The only thing that gives me joy at the moment is my embroidery and music.  I love to hand embroider, I love to listen to music, I love to dance and I love having a rock star in my hotmail box.  And yet somehow all those things have combined to make me have yet another crisis. 

I don't know where I'll end up and with whom, but I do know for now I have to follow in the footsteps of my mother and her mother and her mother and be strong.  Life isn't easy but there are things in it that make my life beautiful even in this particular time period.  I need my mothers to help me from above to remember that it's not the good times that make you strong but the bad times.  Blessings to all and hug your mother or your grandmother, or your great grandmother. 

Sometimes I don't really know why I write this stuff, but I figure God doesn't give you all this happiness and all this pain without  a reason.




Comments

thanks for sharing this. i am fun of this stuffs before....

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