"The next step was to dream up a project inspired by William Stafford. I thought it would be hard. Really, I had already done the hard part by showing up and showing that unconventional Black women like me belonged here." One talented Black woman who belongs in this venue is my mother. This piece is about that epiphany.
In exactly one month, I will be 35 years old. I'm in a transitional phase - new job responsibilities, a child grooming herself for college, one for high school, one smack-dab in the throes of pubescence, and one begging for Kindergarten. My young adult narcissism is finally taking its rightful place in the backseat. A husband with whom time has grown the most beautiful garden of love, and speaking of my garden, I'm glad that it's raining on this midsummer day. Because I am busy. Sometimes too busy.
I forget all that I have in my mother. How can that be when she's sitting at my house before I even get there, drinking tea, making pies or giving my 3-year-old boy junk food? How can I forget her when she's asking 129 questions about a reality TV show while I'm trying to watch it? And talking trash about every single person on the show? Geez, ma. How can I forget when my kids' faces brighten up as they see her coming up the walkway with bags. "What's Gramma got today?" I tell you how. I'm too busy. So much of a busybody that, when she's with me at my house, I'm constantly moving, while she's sitting. Drinking tea, making pies, or enabling Joshie's junk food habit.
I'm so busy, I forget that my mother is much more than my mother. Anyone who's the youngest child in a birth order can agree to this: Nobody had a life before we got here. Right? We've always been carried, catered to, soothed, fed, piggybacked. But the truth is, she was someone before I came into this world - and she's someone now, someone much more than a helpmate when I'm too tired to cook.
My mother is a wise woman. One of the wittiest people I know. A connoisseur of music. A teacher. A doer. An evangelist. A comic. A fairytale romantic. The slickest hair-presser in Portland, and the best pie maker on the west coast. And my mother is a writer. A god-gifted one, at that. Sitting my behind down somewhere and taking a class, slowing down to read poems and prose from a famous author, whose tone and command is remarkably similar to that of my mom's writing, helped me to remember. So, yesterday I called her and asked for her to meet me at my house, and bring her poetry book.
What ensues from this reconnection with my mom in an artistic role has humbled me to grateful, cleansing tears. For 5 decades, she has given of herself - to her younger siblings, to her children, and to many others under her tutelage. I get it. I'm a mom too. But she's more. Life circumstances have delayed some of her opportunities to write - illness, family death, divorce, losing a home, raising children, and re-raising some adults who needed it. Delayed - but not denied. For it was in the midst of difficult circumstance that some of her most prolific pieces were born.
You know how you get a revelation and you just want to go tell everyone you see? That's how I feel. She's my mother. But, y'all, this lady is an author.
We're grown - sure. But there is so much more to learn from older people. Not only is this the most busybody era in history, but we also live in an ageist society where old people, who have given and given again, are put out to pasture to make way for us, when all we're going to do is get old too! We've quit engaging. We are not done learning, folks, and the elderly are not done giving.
So I'm gonna quit asking my mom for peach cobbler and steak every day, and maybe ask her for a few written words a day instead. Well, maybe both. She's my mommy and I need to eat, and I'm tired.
WHAT ON EARTH DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CROCHET? People call me an old soul for crocheting. There you go. Just follow me, and let her words inspire.
In exactly one month, I will be 35 years old. I'm in a transitional phase - new job responsibilities, a child grooming herself for college, one for high school, one smack-dab in the throes of pubescence, and one begging for Kindergarten. My young adult narcissism is finally taking its rightful place in the backseat. A husband with whom time has grown the most beautiful garden of love, and speaking of my garden, I'm glad that it's raining on this midsummer day. Because I am busy. Sometimes too busy.
I forget all that I have in my mother. How can that be when she's sitting at my house before I even get there, drinking tea, making pies or giving my 3-year-old boy junk food? How can I forget her when she's asking 129 questions about a reality TV show while I'm trying to watch it? And talking trash about every single person on the show? Geez, ma. How can I forget when my kids' faces brighten up as they see her coming up the walkway with bags. "What's Gramma got today?" I tell you how. I'm too busy. So much of a busybody that, when she's with me at my house, I'm constantly moving, while she's sitting. Drinking tea, making pies, or enabling Joshie's junk food habit.
I'm so busy, I forget that my mother is much more than my mother. Anyone who's the youngest child in a birth order can agree to this: Nobody had a life before we got here. Right? We've always been carried, catered to, soothed, fed, piggybacked. But the truth is, she was someone before I came into this world - and she's someone now, someone much more than a helpmate when I'm too tired to cook.
My mother is a wise woman. One of the wittiest people I know. A connoisseur of music. A teacher. A doer. An evangelist. A comic. A fairytale romantic. The slickest hair-presser in Portland, and the best pie maker on the west coast. And my mother is a writer. A god-gifted one, at that. Sitting my behind down somewhere and taking a class, slowing down to read poems and prose from a famous author, whose tone and command is remarkably similar to that of my mom's writing, helped me to remember. So, yesterday I called her and asked for her to meet me at my house, and bring her poetry book.
What ensues from this reconnection with my mom in an artistic role has humbled me to grateful, cleansing tears. For 5 decades, she has given of herself - to her younger siblings, to her children, and to many others under her tutelage. I get it. I'm a mom too. But she's more. Life circumstances have delayed some of her opportunities to write - illness, family death, divorce, losing a home, raising children, and re-raising some adults who needed it. Delayed - but not denied. For it was in the midst of difficult circumstance that some of her most prolific pieces were born.
You know how you get a revelation and you just want to go tell everyone you see? That's how I feel. She's my mother. But, y'all, this lady is an author.
We're grown - sure. But there is so much more to learn from older people. Not only is this the most busybody era in history, but we also live in an ageist society where old people, who have given and given again, are put out to pasture to make way for us, when all we're going to do is get old too! We've quit engaging. We are not done learning, folks, and the elderly are not done giving.
So I'm gonna quit asking my mom for peach cobbler and steak every day, and maybe ask her for a few written words a day instead. Well, maybe both. She's my mommy and I need to eat, and I'm tired.
WHAT ON EARTH DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CROCHET? People call me an old soul for crocheting. There you go. Just follow me, and let her words inspire.