Evening

i see the moon and the moon sees me
and the moon sees somebody i want to see.
god bless the moon and god bless me
and god bless the somebody i want to see.
god looked down on me from above
and gave you to me just for me to love,
he picked you out from all the rest
because he knew i'd love you the best.

My mom sang me a version of the song above--but more like "I see the moon and the moon sees me. I smile at the moon and she smiles at me"--and I sing it to my kiddos. Mama had never heard the song except from me, but tonight we heard it in a movie, Evening.

The movie, apparently based on a book by Susan Minot, had several of our favorite actresses: Meryl Streep (and her daughter), Glenn Close, Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins. Wow. I didn't know the plot until we started watching it and, while I found some of it pretty predictable, the themes of motherhood, mistakes, and regret really resonated with me.

Indeed, the last half an hour really spoke to me. I can't summarize the plot well enough here to make sense--and I understand from some reviews that the movie made a hash of it compared to the book. Anyway, in the present, a woman is dying with her two daughters nearby. It is clear from her flashbacks that she has regrets about an early love and the choices she made. Similarly, her two daughters have struggled with some life choices (well, one has anyway). They are coming together here at the end trying to reconcile all their own memories of each other: the dying mother regretting how she was a mother, the daughters coming to understand who their mother was, the daughters coming to understand who they are (specifically as mothers themselves).

In a pivotal scene (for me), the daughter with children talks to her sleeping mom (and it's very powerful that it is a pair of mother-daughter actresses, I think): "And I didn't really understand . . . about, well, how it seems like you break your children's hearts no matter what you do, whether you sing in clubs at night or just stay at home. And you start to wonder which mistakes of yours they're going to forget and which ones they'll still be talking about for years after your gone."

I think one of the complicated processes of motherhood is reviewing and reliving your own childhood and your own mother's motherhood, in light of a much better view and understanding of her position. My mom once said to me that she had her own list of mistakes she has made as a mother and she imagined it wasn't the same as my list of mistakes she had made. I now have my own mental list of mistakes I've made as a mom (and I do worry about the list my kids will compile) and the list I compiled of perceived wrongs my mom did me as a child has gotten shorter in light of it. In the movie, the dying mom concludes that there are no mistakes. I'm beginning to see how that can be true.

In the end, the dying mom is shown as her younger self having trouble cooking dinner with the little girls around. She gives up on doing both and starts to sing them the moon song, with a shot of the stove in complete disaster.

Not a mistake at all.


Time after time
written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne

I tell myself I'm so lucky
To be loving you
I'm so lucky to be
The one you run to see
In the evening
When the day is through
I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You kept my love so young
So new
And time after time
You'll hear me say that i'm
So lucky to be loving you
I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You kept my love so young
So new
And time after time
You'll hear me say that i'm
So lucky to be loving you