Just Like (a) Human

As I sit here this afternoon, I have my lunch sitting on the desk in front of me. Sure, it was a big no-no when we moved into this house — Mom wanted me to get used to not eating in my room, away from people. She said it was anti-social, and bad for my health.

For a while I kept that promise, eating in the dining room, even though I chose to do it when the rest of the family was gone somewhere, or was asleep. I still kept the promise of not eating in my room then.

I’ve taken to eating in my room more often now, because she’s gone. I don’t have her here to verbally reprimand me for doing it.

I sit here this afternoon, with my bowl of phở and a mug with green tea, sweetened with only one teaspoon of honey. I neglect to locate my cameraphone, because my desk is a mess, and because this is a bit of a private image for me.

Yet, the thoughts that pop up require me to talk about this.

The bowl and mug, I noticed as I stirred honey into the hot green tea before me, each symbolize one of my late parents.

The bowl is a ceramic type deal, white, with a thick and a thin hunter green stripe around the rim. The bowl’s contents, the phở itself is white, like the bowl, and the green onions and the packet of vegetables that come with it are varying shades of green to match.

This bowl is the papa bowl. My dad loved hunter green. Whenever he bought clothing for me, he’d try to get something green, if he could get away with it. Long before he passed, he would make food, and when he put it in bowls, he would, perhaps subconsciously, color code each of our bowls. This green-banded bowl was his. I had a blue-banded bowl that was nearly identical. Mom would get the light brown band for hers.

The mug is another ceramic type deal, cream colored, with light brown circling the outside of the mug. Within the light brown band are cream colored circles that would remind you of the 5 bone in dominos. The green tea in the mug is close to the color of the band on the outside of the mug — a brownish hue.

This mug is the mama mug. When I was very young, Mom would always have her morning coffee or morning cocoa from this very mug. There was a couple of other mugs she would drink from, but those were gifts from me, and from one of her children as I grew.

Somehow, I managed to pick up each one of these while making my lunch, though it was completely unintentional.

I didn’t mean to go into this while my lunch is getting cold, but…

I think that sometimes, we as humans do things that make us feel comfortable, or invoke thoughts of past comfort to make the present a little easier to bear. The bowl and mug remind me a lot of mom and dad, whom I miss dearly, but they don’t make me hurt inside like looking at pictures. Maybe it is because they invoke thoughts, old memories of me as a child, where I felt safe, loved, and warm.

Am I the only one who sees it like this?

Time to add more honey to the tea, and eat.

[tags]Spirituality, Comfort, Past, Symbolism[/tags]