mother's day
Mother's Day is this Sunday.
In anticipation, I would love to hear a story about your mother, and see a picture of her (if you want to post or link to it).
Here is my page about my mom, who died almost sixteen years ago.
In anticipation, I would love to hear a story about your mother, and see a picture of her (if you want to post or link to it).
Here is my page about my mom, who died almost sixteen years ago.
Yeah, just a little family resemblance there.
If they asked me, I could write a book* about everything she's taught me and all the ways she's shaped who I am. Big things and little things. She's a novelist; when I was 9 she gave me her manuscripts to read and I pointed out misplaced commas, and that's when I knew I should be an editor. When her novel-writing faltered, she went to the French Culinary Institute and became a professional chef; because she shared her love of food and cooking, I think nothing of eating raw horsemeat in Japan or combating insomnia by making cookies. (My brother and I had mutual hysterics the day he sheepishly revealed that he too is a 2 a.m. baker.) She also taught me that it's never too late to change careers, or combine them. Her website is Between Books, She Cooks and she just finished translating and editing a French food book for Marie Claire. She's always had her own sartorial style and encouraged me to have mine; sometimes we match and sometimes we differ wildly, but the other day she got her hair cut shorter than it's ever been because my super-short hair convinced her she could, and the day after that I wore black leggings and sandals--one of her trademarks--and kept looking at my feet and thinking they were hers. She has taught me how to write a cajoling or demanding letter, how to be a gracious hostess, how to adopt the manners and mannerisms necessary for any situation from drinking in a dive bar to dancing in a ballroom, how to say "I love you" fervently and often, how to stand up for what I believe in, how to believe that I'm invincible and recover from terrible setbacks, how to break bad news gently but without flinching away from it, how to be generous even when money is tight and life is exhausting, how to bargain but never settle.
* A line from the musical Pal Joey, which she played for me along with many other showtunes and jazz albums that formed the foundation of my love for music.
My mother's mother, Caroline, was an artist and collector of art, a stentorian woman with no tolerance for fools or lollygaggers, a Communist and civil rights champion, a practical joker who loved April Fool's Day more than any other holiday, a sardonic romantic who wed at 19 and built a strong, joyous, tender marriage that lasted for fifty years. Caroline's mother, Rosalie, my namesake, was known for being able to coax or berate anyone into doing anything: trains returned to the station for her and the postman delivered her gifts on Christmas Day. They are in me too. I treasure my matrilineal heritage more than I can say. I used to worry about how I could possibly live up to these three whip-smart, strong-willed, funny, passionate, idiosyncratic, tremendous women. Now I can say with pride that I'm carrying on their legacy.
Thank you for inciting this; I think I will post it to my journal on Sunday.
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