My mothers

I was raised more by servants and solitude than by my American parents.  We lived in various countries in Latin America while I was growing up and we had servants, live in maids, one at a time except for one family of husband, wife and daughter; the husband was gardener.

They were usually in their twenties or thirties, humble, from the poor side of town.  Many of them came from shanty towns where they didn’t have running water or electricity.  They were simple sweet people, close to the Earth, some of them fresh from the jungle.  Some might say primitive and yet they really were civilized, elegantly so.

I was so lucky to have such mothers.

Then there was my jet setting mother: “You just wait till your dad gets home, you’re going to get the spanking of your life!”  and then they would sit in their separate chairs in the living room, in silence, reading and drinking their cocktails into the night.