My Little Golden Book of Phobias

Sunday morning in San Rafael. We're eating gluten free popovers with jam. And we're drinking tea, of course. I woke to find Milo watching Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbach. Ah, a child after my own heart. My mother never made popovers but she did make Yorkshire pudding with steak and kidney pie.

The sun has appeared here, albeit briefly. We went to the movies last night and to a restaurant named Fish, a sustainably sourced restaurant in Sausalito. California is insufferably groovy. Of course, I enjoy the heck out of it while I'm here.

Maya and I attended the hippy dance church again yesterday morning. We danced for two hours. It was lovely and sweaty. Ah (yes, that's his name) was there, this time in lavender yoga pants and no shirt. There was a younger hippy guy, also with no shirt. Transport me back to the imaginary days of my youth. As a youth, I didn't get to go to hippy dance church or anything else because I was a mom by the time I was 22. I did the bread making, vegetable growing, vegetarian hippy thing.

Now I watch my daughter with her son. He was doing homework and now they're cleaning the house. Vacuuming and laundry and shaking out rugs. Getting ready for the coming week. I'll be on my way this afternoon but back for Maya's birthday on Christmas. It's odd to pop in and out of their lives. I saw my parents rarely after I moved away. Perhaps being disowned has something to do with it. We never talked about 'the incident' after I was let back in, two years later. We never talked about anything, actually. Not anything important. From the time I was eighteen, we were estranged. Even when I was sitting across from them in their living room.

I swore I'd never throw out a child of mine. What kind of mother does that?