Mom is a four letter word

Learning how to L.O.V.E. plus details about a special Mother's Day event with Giant Letter happening tonight.

My kids are 15 and 11 now. Old enough to make their own breakfast, remember to shower regularly and set up the tent all by themselves when we go camping.

Happy Mother’s Day, readers.

I know today can be fraught with sadness, longing and exhaustion, and it’s also a day that can offer a gentle hug, an exclamation of affection and a nudge toward healing.

This is one of those Mother’s Days where I won’t be spending much, if any time, with my boys. They are with their dad today, and I’m getting some much-needed rest and alone time.

Last year, I wrote two Mother’s Day articles, one about an ancestral tattoo I got on May 11, which is one of the most sacred days of my calendar year. The other was about the 40 percent Mother’s Day tax, the emotional, financial and physical dues that many of us pay all year round.

As we the Empresses, the matriarchs, the holy Mother that is grief and the life/death/life cycle, I wanted to reshare these posts for the new folks who have joined The Feminist Kitchen community in the past year. (All posts that have been up for a year are available for anyone to read, so if you’re a free subscriber, dig into the archives to read those posts you might have missed when they came out.)

And on a final note: I’m honored to be giving free tarot readings from 6 to 8 p.m. tonight at a special event hosted by the wonderful artists behind Giant Letter, who are unveiling their latest oversized art exhibit today at 1312 Broadmoor Drive. It’s free and open to the public, so come by and say hello.

A sneak peek at the new Giant Letter exhibit opening today at 1312 Broadmoor Drive in Austin.

One little nugget of wisdom I share with my tarot clients that I thought I’d share here is something I picked up in recovery. It’s an acronym for love that has helped me reshape my understanding of what parenthood (and friendship and romantic relationships) looks like. It’s Let Others Voluntarily Evolve.

I hope many of you can share and receive this kind of LOVE today, this week, this month and beyond.

Thank you so much for being a subscriber and supporter of this independent journalism project. My story about the cookbook collection ran in the Statesman on Wednesday, and it was a reminder of how much I miss print and yet how grateful I am to continue to write columns each week. Thanks for being here.

Addie

The 40 percent Mother's Day tax

Motherhood is not an island