within. without.

within. without.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

My mom and I don't have much history.

We knew each other from my birth until just after I turned 5, and then not again until I was about 12.

After that, for the next four or five years, we spent about two weeks together every year. Sometimes three. Now we'll see each other for maybe a weekend once or twice a year. Or every other year.

You'd think we'd supplement that forgotten time with conversations about things missed: Boyfriends. First kisses. Classwork. College and careers.

My mother and I don't have those kinds of conversations.

We talk about right now. This may just be the way she's wired, and I'm nothing if not adaptable. I ask the questions. I listen to the answers. I ask some more. I listen some more. The end.

I've tried a few times to fill in the holes. But like trying to mortar a brick wall long after the brick has been laid, it didn't go well.

So we don't look backward the way I do with the family I grew up with, the way we remember "that time when you..." and "what were you thinking when..."

Mom and I don't have a whole lot of times and when's.

Most of the time this doesn't cross my mind. My life is filled with histories shared and stories told with dear folks I just wanna hug. Cups of coffee & cupcakes. Friendship. Family.

But it's on my mind today because in the next 48 hours I'll stop by my mom's to say hi -- she's just a little ways away from Sacramento, where I'm traveling for a business meeting. I'll spend the night, we'll have a nice breakfast, we'll catch up on this right now. Walk around town maybe, comment on the emerging Spring. And then before too long I'll head back to the airport.

Having made a little history.

Queueing to post by cameraphone somewhere over the Rockies enroute to Sacramento