{"id":1894,"date":"2007-03-21T22:10:51","date_gmt":"2007-03-22T05:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2007\/03\/21\/what-i-chose\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:40:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:40:53","slug":"a-visit-with-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2007\/03\/21\/a-visit-with-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"A Visit With Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A Visit With Mother<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Playing with the ocean is a high contact sport.<br \/>\nWrestle a wave, expect<br \/>\nto be tackled, lifted up, tossed aside,<br \/>\nwaves sprinting and jockeying each other to shore,<br \/>\ncresting, swapping twelve-foot high fives.<\/p>\n<p>Boys tag icy waves; cries of surprise<br \/>\ncompete with seagulls. A toddler in pink totters toward<br \/>\nstarlings holding their convention on the sand.<br \/>\nHer face beams as she waves to each bird.<\/p>\n<p>You cross dry sand and it swallows your toes.<br \/>\nThe wind slaps and pushes,<br \/>\nscrubs your face, bleaches your mind.<br \/>\nYour eyes sting and weep in the salt air.<\/p>\n<p>You do not come to the beach for tranquility.<br \/>\nYou do not come here for shelter,<br \/>\nbut to absorb ancient energy,<br \/>\nfeel the rhythm of waves in your blood,<\/p>\n<p>swing on the tidal pendulum,<br \/>\nsubmit to the scrutiny of the bald sun,<br \/>\ngaze at the horizon melting into thousands<br \/>\nof miles of nothingness and possibility.<\/p>\n<p>You come to release your illusions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Kathryn Harper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Visit With Mother Playing with the ocean is a high contact sport. Wrestle a wave, expect to be tackled, lifted up, tossed aside, waves sprinting and jockeying each other to shore, cresting, swapping twelve-foot high fives. Boys tag icy waves; cries of surprise compete with seagulls. A toddler in pink totters toward starlings holding [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,28,16,215,29],"tags":[243,301,141,221,333,229,289],"class_list":["post-1894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aenigmas","category-humanities","category-nature","category-poetry","category-regional","tag-connection","tag-dharma","tag-mother","tag-nature","tag-now","tag-poetry","tag-song"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10623,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions\/10623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}