Morning Minutes.

Sunday morning stretch. 8:20am. My limbs gathered under a light, white blanket, a single bed in the corner. Another still neatly tucked, quarantined on the other side of the room. There were single bookshelves behind each, with a bright bay window bringing morning in between. Books spread across the desk at the base of the window, with my laptop and materials and lesson books spread about. My frame faced the closet, opposite the window and shelves, holding my barest of materials, just what I could pack for three months in the Philippines. A few dresses, a couple of shorts, bathing suit, and teaching shoes squished into that green bag.

Morning was welcome. I yawned, smiled, and pulled the phone in my room over. Resting, waiting.

Ringing.

My smile broaded, my delight full and sleepyness faded.

"Good morning!"

"Good evening!"

My mom and I exchanged our twelve hour differences, marking our phone date and finding ourselves being loved on the Sabbath. Her voice was familiar, home, my mom.

We talked for a bit, chatting about this and that... My weekend adventures, excursions to places like Pajasan Falls or Mt. Tall or the markets flowing down the streets. Or dental missions under tents and percieving squatter villages and talking with my students. We chatted easily, aimlessly. She updated me on fall, the colors and sites and sounds of Michigan harvested under the aumtumn leaves. To family gathered by the fire and roasting dinner and sharing love at the hearth. We exchanged our stories, hours and airplane rides apart, as if Sunday morning and evening were instead met as one.

She ended with a steady voice, and I could hear her love pouring through, her ways of thinking dotting the words. "Christina, I love you and you are worth every penny. But I got my phone bill this month and our calls this month [two calls, about 20 minutes each] were five hundred one Sunday and six hundred dollars the other. You're worth every penny, and I'll call you again, but maybe we'll have consider keeping our calls a little bit shorter."

I gasped, but quietly and perceptively, hearing her words and heart and knowing, she really wasn't concerned about the eleven hundred dollars she had just spent. There was so much love in that motion.

We ended in conclusion, me recommending her to calling about the minutes and lighten the load [which worked, and minimized the bills], but me also feeling and knowing the tenderness of our love, the importance of our connection, the relationship beyond price.

This was my mother. This was her love. This was our miles. This was my morning minutes.