Flowers for Mother

I brought flowers. But Mother wasn’t used to flowers. I am not dead yet, she said. I didn’t know what to do with them. The fleshy roses suddenly seemed obscene. She said: Throw them away if you can’t think of anything better to do with them.

Nothing came to me. It was as if I was paralyzed.

You need to come, Father said on the phone. It was important.

He didn’t say whether it was important for him.

Or for whom. And why.

I should come immediately!

And I took the first flight.

Did she want to see me?

And did I want to see her?

An odor of burnt dolls mixed with the fragrance of chrysanthemum floated in the air.

But chrysanthemum was only in my head.

And that with the dolls was a long time ago.

I brought Mother roses.

Mother lay in bed. She said that I should pray for her.

Mother said: Pray as if it were the same as washing hands. I had only been taught to wash hands.

I can’t pray. Mother never told me about praying. So that I would never depend on anyone. You can only depend on yourself, she said. And I memorized this lesson very well. I memorized this lesson and at the same time forgot it instantly.

Can you imagine? I memorized this lesson forever and forgot it at the same time.

Do you know how it is, to know something and not know? When one is able to do something and is not able? Then one senses that one exists. One is. And one is not. And longs for one’s own being.

You will think I’m crazy. I am not crazy. I am and am not. But is it different with you?

I am not talking to you. I’m talking to me. With the part of me that knows. And is able. And with the part of me that does not know. And is unable. I am in the process of learning how to bring these parts together. Reconcile. Unite them.

And what should come from all this? Not half nor whole. No. A whole being. A balanced being.

And what is balance? Do you know what balance is?

I am also not sure. Even though I sense it on some days. I feel my feet. As they stroke the asphalt. I sense how the foot lifts itself with momentum and positions itself anew. And it is like a dance. Like a chain. Time and time again. As if I were floating. But one does not float. One walks. Walks with oneself. No. One simply walks. And one is not. Rather senses. I am.

Sometimes one walks beside oneself. Sometimes with oneself. In oneself. And sometimes one just walks.

What does she want to hear from me, this young woman? She sat down with me at the table. Without asking for permission. We only know each other by sight. She comes to the café every day to read or to watch the people in the café as she sips endlessly on her small Turkish coffee. Today she looks agitated. She speaks. As if driven by something. Without awaiting an answer.

Balance. What is balance? And who’s balanced, the young woman says. She looks not at me when saying this. She looks out the window. Into the distance. Into a kind of distance that makes time and space disappear.

Balance, she repeats. Is the President of the Republic balanced? What about the Pope? The Mother of God?

She pauses only briefly and looks into her cup, as if there she had, deep inside the cup, discovered a world. Then she continues.

She’s balanced. The Mother of God.

She can balance out the pain of the loss of her son with love. Neutralize it.

She can love the world unconditionally.

And Mother? My Mothe