Still Ruminating....
about my previous comments about motherhood and acceptable risks. Before Emily jumps in here and outs me to the world, I will admit that I have gone a few places and done a few things since I have become a mother. I guess some of this boils down to what one considers to be an acceptable risk.


So.....in Ellyn's world, flying on scheduled commercial airlines is OK. If it's for a good reason and I don't do it too often. Flying to Vermont for my only sister's law school graduation? OK. Flying to Minneapolis for a week-end with my sister to see Bruce Springsteen - OK? Maybe it wasn't. Was flying to Minneapolis to help my sister out after her son was born OK? Yeah, I guess.


I went to Paris in 2000. On Air France. I guess that's OK. But what if some dreadful accident had befallen me while on the Eiffel Tour? Or a tourist jumping off of Notre-Dame, like in last year's Amelie? Or choking on a baguette?


Or what about Mardi Gras 2001? I was walking down Bourbon Street when a beer bottle flew off of a balcony (glass is illegal on balconies, for just that reason.) and missed me by a matter of inches. I calmly kicked the glass to safety and yelled some sort of mommy-esque chastisement to the fellows on the balcony above. What if it hit me? I could have been killed. If not a meretricious death, it would certainly have been "freak accident" material in the local paper. Would I want to be remembered by my children as "poor Mom, taken out by a beer bottle while traipsing from the Desire Oyster Bar to Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop?"


Now I'm working myself into full tilt guilt. I am supposed to go on retreat at the end of March. Just for three days. Two hours away, into Wisconsin. A lot could happen between here and there......


Here's where I'll have to draw the line. A mother needs to be more careful. But she can't let it make her agorophobic.......which is what may happen to me if I cogitate on this topic much longer.