I have never truly envied someone’s wealth, beauty, or professional success, but when—especially a woman talking about her mother’s unconditional, nurturing love—it shatters my heart every single time.

MOM

ENCOUNTER

She is legitimate.
But appears to a
Man at dinner at eight on a Tuesday at a
Madison Avenue coffee-shop counter to be a
Demimondaine.
Her soft scrambled eggs stubbornly resist the
Paroxysms of her esophagus as the
Gray-haired, gray-eyed, gray-suited
Stranger erects himself on the stool beside her and
Comments on the darkness of her seedy toast.
Charred thoughts of the past, of being watched, always watched
Choke her movements. She
Exposes impeccable manners.
Fingers firmly grasp the fork, as she raises her eyes to
Probe his face. Quickly lowering the pronged instrument to the
Hard plate, she slowly rises to pay the bill—one
Account finished,
Another just begun.
Manhattan’s aggressors strangle her sweet pliability of temper and womb.

{From the book, Furrow, by Anne Weitzer}

Until I was in my twenties, I was a Barbara Pym prim and proper young lady. Then, after a series of emotional traumas and heartbreaking losses, I transmogrified into an Iris Murdoch renegade.