"Moms always know better (even when they don't)."

My folks just spent three weeks going back to New Zealand. This was a special trip for them, because they hadn't been back since we left, which was in 1984!

Before they left my mom asked me if there was anything I wanted from the country where I was born. The country which I thought was my home forever until I was 12 and suddenly found myself being moved to the other side of the world. I said I didn't think so. She asked if I wanted a jade necklace, the kind that the indigenous people of NZ, the Maoris, carve. I said, "No thanks, the one I already have is special." In other words, I thought I knew better than you, mom.

When we left NZ our parents promised us we would go back within so many years (I can't remember the exact number) as a family. For a variety of reasons, some good and some, I think our whole family would agree, regretfully not so good. So I went back on my own, the first in my family to do so, in 1997.

It was a special trip. I reconnected with my other family there (an uncle and aunt), the only family that followed my mom and dad from the Netherlands some thirty-some years ago. The only family I grew up with. I had two cousins and my aunt and uncle. That's not a big family.

When I was there I also traveled through New Zealand, from top to bottom. Way beyond any travels we had undertaken when we lived there. It was a big deal, because I had never traveled alone for any significant amount of time. I think I was gone for over a month. But it felt good to get to know this country even though I knew then, in 1997, that I wouldn't choose to resettle there. Not likely, never again.

While I was traveling through NZ, following the tourist routes, I wandered into some tourist shop in Wellington. There I stopped to touch some jade carvings. And on an impulse I bought the necklace shown above on the right, the fishhook.

I'm not sure why I bought it at the time. I felt awkward being part of the tourist scene in this country that was supposed to be mine. And I grew up, in France, living right smack in the middle of tourism, as we had a camping ground business. My family prospered thanks to tourism; I couldn't possibly be a tourist myself!

But that fishhook, I wore it, and have worn it, day in, day out, ever since I bought it in 1997. It's been my only piece of jewelry that I've worn so religiously for so many years. And I know why.

Through all my travels, from France to the Netherlands, from the Netherlands to Canada and from Canada to the U.S. a few coveted items have given me my roots and secured me in my sense of who I am. The fishook was one item. A road sign from France telling tourists which road to take to get to our camping ground is another.

The fishhook represents the Maori symbol of protection for the traveler. While I am not one for superstition or belief in something or someone looking over us, that fishhook meant the world to me. I reminded me of my roots, even though those roots were those of a 12-year old, and it was what carried me through many more countries as a young adult. It was me. Marsha and her fishhook. A weird necklace for a young woman. So I said to my mom, "No thanks, the one I already have is special."

But moms always know better.

A few days ago I received a package with gifts from France, from the New Zealand trip. I had already at that point lived vicariously through my folks by admiring, laughing and crying over the many photos they had taken while down under. I pored over details of our house, the one we had built, and which my parents, unbeknowst to me beforehand, had decided to visit. And I laughed at seeing pictures of my cousin Minouk and her daughters, who I have never met. I managed to get David to sit down and I showed him all those pictures, one for one, clearly both nostalgic and so happy for my parents and their trip.

Then I got the package. With a new jade for myself (and one for Ruby and David). I didn't want to feel annoyed and lose that thrill I'd experienced at seeing those photos. The connections that felt new and alive to this faraway country I used to think would be my home, the one and only home most people have. But I did. Because I didn't want a new jade. I didn't "need" a new jade, or at least so I thought, because I thought I knew better.

Until I read the symbol of the koru, the jade on the left (above), the jade that my mom had chosen carefully and with love for me. Koru (spiral--I happen to know that it's the same spiral as the opening of the fern bud, the national plant of New Zealand): "New life or beginning, harmony and peace."

Moms know better and I cried as I explained this all to David that evening, when he helped me take off my fishhook and helped me put on my koru. My koru. My jade that tells me that it's okay if my travels are over, at least for now. My jade that connects me, peacefully, with my past and my present, with the new life that is Ruby and my old life that is me, the traveler, the one who doesn't know where she belongs. My jade that connects me, the tireless advocate for change, with a desire for calm and quiet at home, in my own life, with David and Ruby. Harmony and peace.

What a great gift. I wanted you to know that mom.