:: :: on proximity & ecology :: ::

my mom and i have always been close. whenever i've been away we've talked most every day. and living here has worked out surprisingly well. but one thing i'm finding more difficult is blogging. my mom reads the blog -- she always has -- but something about being here and writing about my life... it seems like suddenly i am writing to an audience of one. what will she think about what i write? how will she see it differently? what will she say to me?

just writing this blog post is making me tense. will i upset her? will it make her act any differently? even though i think of it as being about me, how is it also about her?

how odd that simple proximity really can change a situation. how strange that i feel nervous about what i write now. it's not true, but it somehow feels true that every aspect of my self, my being, my existence, is now (so much differently than before) tied up with my mother's self, her being, her existence.

our days interact. our moods intermingle.

in a very real way it feels like we're doing an intricate dance. a dance of symbiosis. it truly feels ecological: like suddenly our relationship is not a relationship but a system. it's not just about our individual persons but about our space -- about the space around us, the space we share, the spaces we keep separate. it's a system that requires extra care and attention -- one that requires balance. effort, sometimes.

it's a balancing act that we simultaneously know and remember from a long life lived together and are continually relearning.

i wonder what each of us will take from this when the time comes that we again live in separate houses. i wonder in what ways i will be changed. in what ways she will be changed. i wonder whether it has made our relationship stronger or whether it has introduced new cracks into the foundation.

i like to think that even the small moments of friction that occur now -- friction that comes from any two lives being rubbed up against each other -- are teaching us to love one another more. to accept one another's quirks.

or maybe these moments are teaching us about independence.