In the private confines of a darkened room, you can laugh, cry, and feel. You look at what’s projected ahead and believe that it is really a part of you. You hold close, someone who has become pretty central, like a pivot, detached from your body, yet living your dream – your supreme responsibility to steer, to guide and to mold.
And so begins the opening scene of La La Land - a choked up freeway in LA, a frustrated mess of traffic, looking for somewhere to go. It could just as well have been a sink full of dirty dishes or a hamper of baby laundry; a sullied and banal deterrent. And yet the heart is uplifted into song, breaking out from the dull and mundane into a joyous dance, opening unexpected doors, having unlikely neighbors join the chorus.
To tumble out into the spontaneous sunshine, to climb up a tower and be drenched in moon light, is romanticizing for sure, and a landmark of the young at heart setting off in the earliest part of their journey.
Like La La Land, motherhood flirts with idealism - the “hands in the sands and head in the clouds” kind. The frantic anxiety and desperate squalor of the present situation is placed alongside the perfect dream of the future. The indulgence in the retro is juxtaposed against the theme of modern feminism. The hyper sensitization to someone else’s needs is matched up to somehow demand that you fall in step with their moves.
So this is where the dancing is brought in, and the backdrop of song, which accentuates the beautiful feel of being in the moment. And when the dancing ends, you are hit with the important realization of how to let go, when to let go.
As mothers all over make the crowded journey, it’s still about each one making it alone. Like all those salmon making the harsh trip back up the river, it is a combination of fundamental instinct and an intense burst of inertia of movement.
It’s a role that starts out mighty huge – action packed, with sleepless nights and doctor visits. Countless training sessions on how to walk, eat and read. And it evolves over time, changing organically, and becoming more advisory. And the supreme crown on her head is a factor of you – only it becomes an embarrassing debate of how much of you is you and how much comes from her.
So I have no crown for my mother – because crowns can be ephemeral and utopic. And awards can be rescinded.
This Mother’s Day, I want to take this time to honor my mother forever. All I can do is humbly acknowledge her service and return her great love. And express gratitude for her long-term vision and her unshakable belief in me. And for all the choices that she made.
Because ultimately, it’s about the choices that a woman makes.
That’s Motherhood. That’s La La Land. Either you get it or you don’t.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom!!