This was excellent. I also read your other essay on motherhood. Wow. The feeling and the words. I felt it, I lived it, too. Thank you for sharing. I always enjoy what you write & connect with it.
I feel a start of a book with the essay about the generations of mothers. It is so good at getting to the marrow of the thing, and yet the elusive questions we still ask ourselves. I have lately been writing about my mother in my journal and what was missing from our relationship( she passed away in 2019). And that of course had me look at my grandmother, and her mother, who had very different outlooks on family. I now see my mother did the best she could, considering her background ( my grandfather was emotionally abusive to her, especially being the oldest) and my grandmother tried, to her detriment, to stay in a marriage with a selfish man, to be a “good, Christian woman” versus her mother who married several times. I was not super close to my mother, she told me I was difficult from the first months of the pregnancy and she couldn’t relate to me as a person, more feisty, outspoken, physical, and so on than she was. Later, a year or so before she passed, she told me she was always a little in awe of my boldness as a child, and she regrets trying to squash it in the name of being “more ladylike.” She was kind, curious about many subjects, and her elementary students loved her. She was creative and generous with family or strangers. She was also deeply depressed, withdrawn socially and lupus had really been hard on her body. I miss her, and will ask many questions that may go unanswered about her life and how she related to me. Thank you for writing this- it is so well written because it makes us go there when we think of our Moms.
Love the post and revisiting the essay. Thank you. Love this especially, “I now have a mother’s appreciation for the mess of the thing. I’ll not make those mistakes, we say. And yet. Are they mistakes? Or just small navigational errors in a long and difficult journey? Is life just a series of course corrections? My grandmother, Rosemary, used to say after any blunder, “You just pick yourself up and get on down the road.” A convenient mantra for one who left so much wreckage behind.”
This was excellent. I also read your other essay on motherhood. Wow. The feeling and the words. I felt it, I lived it, too. Thank you for sharing. I always enjoy what you write & connect with it.
I feel a start of a book with the essay about the generations of mothers. It is so good at getting to the marrow of the thing, and yet the elusive questions we still ask ourselves. I have lately been writing about my mother in my journal and what was missing from our relationship( she passed away in 2019). And that of course had me look at my grandmother, and her mother, who had very different outlooks on family. I now see my mother did the best she could, considering her background ( my grandfather was emotionally abusive to her, especially being the oldest) and my grandmother tried, to her detriment, to stay in a marriage with a selfish man, to be a “good, Christian woman” versus her mother who married several times. I was not super close to my mother, she told me I was difficult from the first months of the pregnancy and she couldn’t relate to me as a person, more feisty, outspoken, physical, and so on than she was. Later, a year or so before she passed, she told me she was always a little in awe of my boldness as a child, and she regrets trying to squash it in the name of being “more ladylike.” She was kind, curious about many subjects, and her elementary students loved her. She was creative and generous with family or strangers. She was also deeply depressed, withdrawn socially and lupus had really been hard on her body. I miss her, and will ask many questions that may go unanswered about her life and how she related to me. Thank you for writing this- it is so well written because it makes us go there when we think of our Moms.
Love the post and revisiting the essay. Thank you. Love this especially, “I now have a mother’s appreciation for the mess of the thing. I’ll not make those mistakes, we say. And yet. Are they mistakes? Or just small navigational errors in a long and difficult journey? Is life just a series of course corrections? My grandmother, Rosemary, used to say after any blunder, “You just pick yourself up and get on down the road.” A convenient mantra for one who left so much wreckage behind.”
Wild applause for "Mother's and Daughters" and a standing ovation for Kids. You're so damned good!
I loved the way you laid out the writing to introduce reality and memories for this story. These short pieces spoke in abundance. Thank you.
So good. I just finished the essay about being a mother. Only you know if it is the best thing you've ever written. I can only say: wow. Just wow.