"Hi, Adina, it's mom. I just got back from work and I am going to heat up some soup and go for a walk!"
A WALK! Even better: The Long Walk. Be it speedy or meandering, it is our mothers' way of expressing optimism. There is so much hope and pride contained within The Walk.
I think that women of my mother's generation have their own particular style of optimism. But it is bizarre how similar it is across the board.
Initially, I suppose, a good deal of it was transferred onto us. That we, their children, would metamorphose into less flawed versions of themselves. When it became clear that we would not able to fill those glass slippers, I think our mothers secretly transferred that optmism onto The Walk.
Now, it is less: "My daughter got an A on her paper. She got into blabla univeristy." More and more, it is: "I was going for a walk to get a paper. then I just started walking. All down university. Across the lakeshore. Up again through Chinatown, and back home again..."
