While I’m not lucky to live close to my family, I am lucky to have family that comes to visit me. Last week, as is becoming her May custom, my mom graced us with her presence for a few days.
Toasting our day at Rancho Valencia spa. I was impressed at her beer adventurousness!
Her visit was like a mini retreat for me, a break in the normal flow of things. A reminder that certain characteristics of myself (and my life) aren’t chosen, or random even, but have roots. Beginnings.
No bike in sight. (But there WAS a pool, and I did 2×25’s sculling drills, wink wink.)
We downward dogged and shavasanaed. We lazed by the pool after a spin class/yoga/pedicure trio at the heavenly Rancho Valencia spa.
Me in huge heels, but still, how did this happen?
We walked on the beach, BBQ’d with friends, and shopped. We talked, over our favorite beverages, of family, work, faith and friendship—everyday conversations I sometimes forget how much I miss. Some things, only moms get.
At Torrey Pines Beach, classic out-of-town visitors’ walk.
And of course, we ate. Everything from a three-course meal at Wine Vault, to Mark’s burgers, to hole-in-the-wall tacos, to raw oysters at Fish 101. (Her first!)
An intentionally cheesy-posed shot, that I still love.
I swam a little, but otherwise barely trained. I wanted to be with her as much as possible, a choice that meant staying up “late” (for a triathlete) followed by sleepy coffees on the patio always beat my best early-morning run plans.
My mom trying her FIRST EVER RAW OYSTER.
This morning I ate the last piece of her homemade lemon-poppyseed loaf (she always bakes for us when she’s here, a wonderful compliment to my lack of training), and wished that the world was just a little bit smaller.
And then I promptly returned to trying to live big in the one we’ve got—just like she taught me to.
5 thoughts on “mom’s the word”