Interview with my mother

As I walked into the beige and cozy living room, I saw my mom lounging on the couch reading the Denver Post with her limp reading glasses. The room itself brings back so many memories of my childhood and times past I couldn't help but to reminisce. The air was humid do to resent rain storm that had just passed through, the mood was calm and relaxed. Candles flickered on the mantle surrounding thoughtfully framed pictures of my family and friends. As my mom picked up the poem, she struggled to decipher the unfamiliar words, I could see the wrinkles around her eyes condense as her eyes scanned the poem line by line. I could tell that she didn't understand the poem  at first, just by the way her lips pursed in slight frustration. Though I suggested that she read it again. The second time she read the poem, I could see the relief in her face when she finally began to understand the complexity of the poem.

After reading through the poem twice my mom looked up at me in curiosity. Initially I asked her of the first thing that came to her mind. She responded with hesitation, she knew the poem was about the characters companion but she wasn't sure if the companion had another underlying meaning. Though when looking through the poem she picked out a few lines that suck out to her.

"Oh Companion That Abode Is Unmatched,

Where My Complete Beloved Is.

In that Place There Is No Happiness or Unhappiness,
No Truth or UntruthNeither Sin Nor Virtue" (Kabir 1-5). 

In this moment she realizes that this place where his companion resides is so peaceful and serene. It is a comfortable place where the character can go to without hesitation or judgement. My mom relates this back to how she tries to create a home or an abode of love and support for her family. I then went on to ask my mom if she thought this abode was a physical place, and her answer was that it was not a physical place but more of a state of mind and being where a person can go to be free. When I asked my mom to place an emotion with the poem, I was very surprised at her answer. She thought the poem was sad and depressing, where I had not picked up on any of that until now. "Where the Beloved Is There is Utterly Nothing" (Kabir 21). He is basically saying that because he has no physical things to be love there is no pressure on him to love anything and this is liberating. 

When I asked my mom "Why is this place so peaceful?" she responded "It is because he doesn't have any requirements, he doesn't have a mortgage, he doesn't have expectations, he can just simply exist and that is enough for him." I thought this was a very interesting perspective. It is amazing how much maturity can play into understanding. Because I, being a teenager am not surrounded by the struggles of the adult world therefore I wouldn't completely understand why having absolutely nothing would be so liberating. This brought me to the topic of materialism. It is his state of mind and not the physical state of things that make him happy. People do not need luxurious things to be happy. This then brought me to question who the beloved is in the poem. At first my mom thought that it might be a girlfriend of his, where as I thought that his own companion was his spirituality. This was the only part of the poem that my mom was slightly confused about, 

because it is not clear who/ what his companion is. 

The interview was now finished and I had touched on the majority of the questions that I had, the room was still very peaceful and the sun had just dipped down below the mountains when I looked out the picture window to my right. Birds were chirping and a cool spring breeze travelled through the cracked window. As I began to pack up my things and wrap up the interview, I contemplated the impact that age has on a persons understanding. Though some younger people are very mature for their age, wisdom in my opinion really does come with age, with more experiences people become more educated of the world. My mom pointed out many things in my poem of choice that I don't think I would have picked up on otherwise. She really opened up my mind to a different side of the poem, so I am very glad I got the chance to talk to her.