I MISS MY MOMMY!!!

It's true, it's all true, it's no April Fool's joke, I MISS MY MOMMY! Curse you, Michigan, and your pristine perfection, family ties and jobs with perks luring my mommy away! I know, I know, it was my own choice to move 13 hours away from my homeland and gripe and bitch about my mom living far away and then gripe and bitch when she did move here and now gripe and bitch when she moves back home! Mom-ma! (think 'Stella!' type anguish-filled plaintiff howl).

Yesterday after work I went to the local second hand store. Not because I wanted to buy anything (and I didn't) but because it reminds me of mom. Yes, mom and I visited there several times over the course of her brief residency here, but really any second hand store reminds me of mom. There's this smell, this musty smell, this smell of treasure waiting to be discovered in the cast offs of closets of yore. The smell evokes warm childhood memories of quiet grey days spent discovering fantastic stuff with momma in dust-mote filled corners of these warehouses of wonderment.

Ever since I can remember mom took us kids to second hand stores. While she mainly stalked the clothing aisles, I would hunker down in the musty book section and find treasure upon treasure in the classics. Peyton Place, House of the Seven Gables, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, I'm Ok, You're Ok, A Hitch hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Blue Highways, On The Road, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Jonathon Livingston Seagull - those titles and SO many more were mine for the price of a nickel, a dime, a quarter, I don't know, never more than a dollar, at the local St. Vincent DePaul.

My mom is famous for her second-hand splurges and on her many moves (mom's sort of a gypsy in more tasteful clothing), the first thing she'd stake out was where and how many second hand stores there were. Forget groceries, this is more important! Junking is sustenance, equally if not more important than food and water! One year for Christmas, we even gave her gift certificates to Goodwill because we knew she'd like the opportunity to junk more than anything we could buy her new. Yes, mom taught us there's something soul-nourishing about second hand store hunting. And there is.

And yesterday my soul needed nourishing. I needed my momma. So I perused the racks of the musty old store and stalked the perimeter for furniture and housewares and even visited the back room for extreme bargains, etc., and then I just cried. I just couldn't help it, the tears just came. I sort of wandered in between some racks and let it out. I just plain miss my mom. I know I'll get to see her again, and I'm sure we have many junk-store filled afternoons ahead of us. I just miss her right here and now and it was nice to have that safe haven of used stuff to express myself in. Love you mom. Miss you.