Velvet painting of an evening

Oppressive, bubbling heat cools into the dusky steam of evening. Cool beers and creature comforts: ribs, coleslaw, corn muffins, honey butter. Momma on the back porch listening to the birds, the trees, the sound of the world outside. Talk about nothing, about everything, about people that affect us or silly things we want to share with the other. It's infrequent, but refreshing to sit down and keep company with my mother. We are warriors together, weathering the same storms. She pictures a journey off to calmer waters and I into the spray on the rocks. I am never more aware that we are nothing but women when we sit at the end of our days and unwind. I like hearing her humble hurts, the frustrations she faces day after day. It's nice to remember that the apple never falls all too far from the tree.