During the day I get sweeping, gushing feelings of exhaustion, which essentially force me into the bed for a rest. But while I rest, I also think. And it’s quite nice to do.

This past holiday season – between Christmas and New Years, I did something very important: I re-watched for the umpteenth time Pride and Prejudice with my mother. The BBC version. The best of versions. She and I have watched it so many times. Countless times. There’s no one else I’d rather watch it with, and frankly it’s not half as good if I watch it without her.

So, we make our cups of tea and sometimes there’s a small plate of cookies. Then, we climb onto what is the most enormous bed ever, being a king-sized bed, with a gorgeously thick duvet cover, and settle in for a little bit of viewing. It’s not all watched at once, because it is quite long, so when we embark on watching Pride and Prejudice, I have  the additional please of knowing that there will be several sessions of tea, cookies, bed and viewings.

She may have her knitting, and I may have my phone. But mostly I think we have each other and the company of the Bennet Family. Because inevitably as we watching the show, we will end up holding hands and laughing at whatever witty thing just happened on the screen.

I love Pride and Prejudice, but even more I love holding hands with my mom. I love that space and time of being together. This is probably literally the first time I’ve mentioned the  action ‘aloud’ but there you have  it. It’s unspoken, and feels perfectly natural. It didn’t always happen, since growing up I wasn’t so into ‘touching other people’ – but living in a different country for a while from one’s family can make one more sentimental….and it carries on from there.

Anyhow, I really value my relationship with my mother. And I value those little moments. And I value that we get each other in a way that never needs exploration.

So I’m lying in bed ‘napping’ but really thinking about all of this, which makes me think a little further. My mom and I are close, in an unspoken way. It’s very hard to describe beyond Mom and Daughter – close friendship doesn’t capture it enough. But I think that scene in the bed does. So what about my other extremely important relationships? How are they best captured?

Well Zsolt and I… I mean… it’s captured every day in every moment. He is my husband, I am his wife, and we are for one other. So I’ll just leave it there because I think that is saying enough and frankly it’s all too big to hold in words on this blog. It’s like the intangible relationship with my mom, but so unique to itself.

My Dad and I – that is such an easy one. Our moment, I feel comes in two ways. One is simply the way we exchange. I’ve blogged about this before. The ‘he gets me every time’ and the ‘I get him right back with a zing’. I’m not sure he loves this arrangement, but it’s a dynamic that is more about love and habit than it is about anything else. And then the other way, the smaller moment of a hug or a smile. This is new for me because, like I mentioned, I don’t much love being touched. But in some moments, some important moments, a hug is okay.

And then that unique relationship with my brothers. It’s so different than my parents  or husband or best of friends. It’s not so sentimental, but … but maybe it is?

Big brother little sister – What moment or gesture marks its meaning? I think, of late, it has been his kindness and support. He loves to push – all his life he has pushed, and in his adulthood he’s harnessed that into the power of pushing people to live well. I, however, don’t love to be pushed. Ha! Not at all. So we find our medium ground. But more than that – beyond how he makes me juice and reminds me I should exercise… the real bottom line is we’ve learned how to support one another. Supporter and supported in turn, as needed, in different ways that life poses challenges.

At least, I think so. It’s kind of a new one for me to consider.

And then big sister little brother. I really am not sure the marker for love here – except that I care for  that guy like crazy. Like nutso.  Like bonkers. Growing up he was literally at times my closest friend, but probably too young to understand that, I think. In adulthood we have our own lives, but still these occasional wonderful moments. The other day he surprised me as he and his girlfriend took me out to see The Gift of Lights here in Ottawa. It’s a camp ground that was covered in Christmas light displays, and you drive through slowly and it’s quite surreal. Well we put on Pink Floyd and it was fantastic. How can you not love an evening like that? We even hit up my parents’ hot tub in Kanata afterwards. It felt like being a teenager again.

And then there are my closest friends. What moments make those relationships? The conversations, I think, more than the individual actions. The chance to exchange on ideas that are either about life, or culture, or just picking things to pieces and better understanding the world. God I love doing that over a cup off tea. Maybe they can best be represented by cups of tea 🙂

Anyhow, when I stop and think about it, there are so many kinds of very important relationships in my life. It’s quite fascinating how they are all so different in function and form, but bottom line all so very much filled with love.

Next, I hope to watch Anne of Green Gables with my mother. It’s a much longer series, produced by TVO (I think?) and a great classic. I have not watched it 1000 times before, but maybe 500 times. So, this is something to look forward to once again. And those cookies. Geez, my parents make amazing  cookies.