My mother asked me to paint a wall for her recently. She could have easily hired someone to do this but much prefers to have her children around (and no matter how much we object, she always insists on paying us way more than she would have to pay someone else…for her, it is a social event). I arrived at her home at 9:30 in the morning and was finished by 4:30. She didn’t want to do the painting herself, but talked to me, non-stop, while I painted…and sang too. My mother has always had an “interesting” habit of breaking into song if a word in the conversation reminds her of some tune from the past.
About an hour into my painting, I was feeling a little bit irritated by her constant chatter and was, at that point, on top of her 8 foot ladder, doing a peak when she said, “Do you want me to stand behind you?”, I said no, and she started singing, “…stand beside you and guide you though the night with the light from above. Through the meadows, through the prairies….” I just started laughing and said, “Mom, it is a really bad idea to sing like that when I am on the top of a ladder.” She started cracking up too. She hadn’t even realized that she was doing it.
From that moment on, something changed and I just entered into the spirit of it. It became like a game, fun and creative, and we had a wonderful day. I opened my emails when I arrived back home and there was this funny, sweet video of a mourning dove and a cat (thank you Carol for sending it) that made me laugh, think of my mother and myself and how much fun life can be when I change my perspective.
“It’s the game of life. Do I win or do I lose? One day they’re gonna shut the game down. I gotta have as much fun and go around the board as many times as I can before it’s my turn to leave.” Tupac Shakur
The link to it is below.
