Please listen, and don't devour me.

Happy Mother's Day.

Got a mom? Tell her you love her. Don't got a mom? Tell her you love her anyway.

I find it interesting that the Spanish word for pregnant and the Spanish word for embarrassed are the same. The root meaning is burden, which makes a kind of sense, but there is also the connotation of shame to consider. Rather bizarre, I'd say, given that none of us would be here if it weren't for that bloody, painful, ecstatic, carnal process.

Embarrassment arises from the collision of vulnerability and fear. Sex and pregnancy and childbirth are all vulnerable experiences, not necessarily in any negative sense until fear enters the picture. Life can be cruel. We get hurt and we get callous to protect ourselves, and we learn to dismiss or despise those aspects of life that leave us open to pain. But vulnerability leads to joy as well as pain, not to mention transformation. I guess what I'm really talking about is surrender. When you're completely vulnerable, you relinquish control. You turn into someone else. That's sex, that's pregnancy, that's childbirth: the unexpected and the miraculous.

Our mothers went through that. All of them did. Even yours. That's why we exist.

Thanks, mom.