When I started this blog just about a year ago, I pledged to write truthfully about things, even when it's scary.
It's scary now, as I try to push myself in a series of Brush Strokes/Keystrokes portraits of people. The first was of my mom, two nights ago. But I realized while driving around in the hideous icy weather today that I hold dark memories of her, too. Perhaps I've buried them. Perhaps I've sugar-coated them. Perhaps I wanted a storybook ending to my mother's untimely death from cancer. It felt, and feels, disloyal, somehow, to remember bad parts of our relationship. I did not want to lose my mother, so I guess I did not want to remember the imperfect times. As if remembering those would taint my memory of her, a memory I had to cling to so that I could have the strength to move on. As if presenting someone's lovely college graduation photo is presenting the whole picture.
But then I thought--maybe burying these things is unhealthy. Maybe the truth does set us free. Maybe I'll sit less with chocolate and graham crackers if I face the good, bad and ugly.
Every face in a portrait is not flawless. People have crooked noses, lumpy chins, evil eyebrows. Some are plain people, but their portraits are still celebrated. Do flaws add to or subtract from the overall image? The Mona Lisa is not perfect--is she?
Warning: This is stark.
It's not all pretty, it truly isn't. I remember a hot day when Mom was really, really mad at me. I was down the block at my cousins' house, and had Sis's hand-me-down black Barbie case with me. I was seven or younger, definitely a low single digit. I was wearing pink flowered culottes.
My mother was furious, I can't remember why, and chased me home to our house, rage on her face, one of us holding the case, but I can't remember which. Past the Connellys, the Wings, the Harrises, the Gilmartins, the Russels--11 houses in all. I know because I counted them, I liked to know how close I lived to my godmother and my cousins. I'm pretty sure she hit me with a strap when we got home. In her bedroom. I think she may have hit me on the way there, too, right in front of the neighbors' houses, though I didn't see any witnesses out on the street. I was scared.
She hit me other times, too, I think always with a belt.
What about that small drawer in the bottom of her dresser, her work life pre-kids distilled down into a collection of supplies--stapler, staple remover, paper clips? Did she regret what she left behind, working in a lab as chemist in the early 1950s, to raise four kids? While her husband stayed on at the company?
When I was little, I threw up a lot. I think I had a nervous stomach. I threw up on the first day of first grade, but still had to go to school. Once, I threw up 14 times in the middle of the night. I had a virus, and couldn't stop wretching in the small pink and black bathroom right across from my parents' bedroom. My mother did not stand with me, or behind me, or hold my hair back. She lay in bed next to my father, but she was awake. She told me not to drink water, or it would make me throw up more. I was so thirsty between throwing up, I was dying for water. I think I had a few sips from the bathroom cup, kept them down and finally fell asleep on the cracked black leather couch in the TV room next to the bathroom.
When my first boyfriend broke up with me, at 16, after a winter of letters mailed from Long Island, with his swimming medals enclosed, and a summer of my first kisses, she did not appear to understand why I was so brokenhearted. That was just puppy love, she said with a smile, as if brushing it off lightly would somehow make me feel better. I wish she had understood. It was a crossroads. What if she had talked to me about it? What if she had taken it seriously? What would be different now? Didn't she care to see me as I was?
At least once, but I think rarely, I was the mean one. It was that Cape Cod summer before she died--so I was 19. She wanted to use some of my sunscreen at Nauset Light Beach. I didn't want to share it because the bottle was almost empty. I regretted that pretty quickly. But then she wouldn't take it when I offered. This is a memory that still haunts me.
That's enough for now. This is hard. And the flip side of it all is that it makes me realize that my Dear Figgy has some very ugly memories of me, too. It's not all love. It's sometimes rage, disappointment, fear, denial.
It feels scary to click the orange PUBLISH POST button now. But here I go.
Good night.
It's scary now, as I try to push myself in a series of Brush Strokes/Keystrokes portraits of people. The first was of my mom, two nights ago. But I realized while driving around in the hideous icy weather today that I hold dark memories of her, too. Perhaps I've buried them. Perhaps I've sugar-coated them. Perhaps I wanted a storybook ending to my mother's untimely death from cancer. It felt, and feels, disloyal, somehow, to remember bad parts of our relationship. I did not want to lose my mother, so I guess I did not want to remember the imperfect times. As if remembering those would taint my memory of her, a memory I had to cling to so that I could have the strength to move on. As if presenting someone's lovely college graduation photo is presenting the whole picture.
But then I thought--maybe burying these things is unhealthy. Maybe the truth does set us free. Maybe I'll sit less with chocolate and graham crackers if I face the good, bad and ugly.
Every face in a portrait is not flawless. People have crooked noses, lumpy chins, evil eyebrows. Some are plain people, but their portraits are still celebrated. Do flaws add to or subtract from the overall image? The Mona Lisa is not perfect--is she?
Warning: This is stark.
It's not all pretty, it truly isn't. I remember a hot day when Mom was really, really mad at me. I was down the block at my cousins' house, and had Sis's hand-me-down black Barbie case with me. I was seven or younger, definitely a low single digit. I was wearing pink flowered culottes.
My mother was furious, I can't remember why, and chased me home to our house, rage on her face, one of us holding the case, but I can't remember which. Past the Connellys, the Wings, the Harrises, the Gilmartins, the Russels--11 houses in all. I know because I counted them, I liked to know how close I lived to my godmother and my cousins. I'm pretty sure she hit me with a strap when we got home. In her bedroom. I think she may have hit me on the way there, too, right in front of the neighbors' houses, though I didn't see any witnesses out on the street. I was scared.
She hit me other times, too, I think always with a belt.
What about that small drawer in the bottom of her dresser, her work life pre-kids distilled down into a collection of supplies--stapler, staple remover, paper clips? Did she regret what she left behind, working in a lab as chemist in the early 1950s, to raise four kids? While her husband stayed on at the company?
When I was little, I threw up a lot. I think I had a nervous stomach. I threw up on the first day of first grade, but still had to go to school. Once, I threw up 14 times in the middle of the night. I had a virus, and couldn't stop wretching in the small pink and black bathroom right across from my parents' bedroom. My mother did not stand with me, or behind me, or hold my hair back. She lay in bed next to my father, but she was awake. She told me not to drink water, or it would make me throw up more. I was so thirsty between throwing up, I was dying for water. I think I had a few sips from the bathroom cup, kept them down and finally fell asleep on the cracked black leather couch in the TV room next to the bathroom.
When my first boyfriend broke up with me, at 16, after a winter of letters mailed from Long Island, with his swimming medals enclosed, and a summer of my first kisses, she did not appear to understand why I was so brokenhearted. That was just puppy love, she said with a smile, as if brushing it off lightly would somehow make me feel better. I wish she had understood. It was a crossroads. What if she had talked to me about it? What if she had taken it seriously? What would be different now? Didn't she care to see me as I was?
At least once, but I think rarely, I was the mean one. It was that Cape Cod summer before she died--so I was 19. She wanted to use some of my sunscreen at Nauset Light Beach. I didn't want to share it because the bottle was almost empty. I regretted that pretty quickly. But then she wouldn't take it when I offered. This is a memory that still haunts me.
That's enough for now. This is hard. And the flip side of it all is that it makes me realize that my Dear Figgy has some very ugly memories of me, too. It's not all love. It's sometimes rage, disappointment, fear, denial.
It feels scary to click the orange PUBLISH POST button now. But here I go.
Good night.
Posts
Dear Al. I read this a few times. I know it sounds like a cliché, but children don’t come with instruction manuals on how to raise them. Your mother, our parents, and we did/do the best we can dependent upon the situation. I am not defending it, but theirs was a generation that still believed in hitting. But it was balanced with love. My father usually would react quickly to a situation, smack first, and ask questions later. My mother’s tool of punishment was the wooden spoon. My defense was volume Hi –Ju of the Golden Book Encyclopedia for Children wedged into the back of my pants. I wonder if she ever noticed that I had a rectangular butt? I am not making light of it, just trying to make you laugh a little. I made tons of mistakes with my kids, too. Different from my parents mistakes, but tons nonetheless. Your mother was a good person... and how brave you are to tackle this at this time. But maybe it will help on deeper levels. So perceptive about the chocolate and the grahams. Love, Linda
ReplyDeleteLin, i thank you so much for your comment. as i said, it was very scary to write that, face it and post it. you are right, none of us is perfect. I have a tendency to idolize others--in their marriages, their parenting skills, their appearances--and to undermine myself. after posting that, i am remembering a lot of my mother's nurturing moments. but i don't know if that is to make her or me feel better. i know, as Kim wisely said in a blog post once, we're all doing our best--and we can all do better. love alice
ReplyDeleteAlice,
ReplyDeleteIt takes a lot of courage to face the reality that sometimes (or a lot of times) our parents, particularly our mothers, aren't who we wanted them to be. It is not uncommon to want to remember only the good about those who have passed on, either. Guilt fuels a lot of that plus a wish that it would be so because we wish it so. It makes the remembering so much easier on the soul when it's only the good stuff. I believe that allowing yourself to have your own truth about your mother, regardless of what other's perceptions of her were is very freeing, although it can be painful at times. I hope that by going on this journey you will be able to accept everything your mother was - someone's daughter, wife, mother, sister; for the gifts and the wounds she gave to you that make you the unique and intelligent woman and mother you are today. One day to remember and laugh about it anyway.
Your bootcamp friend.
to my bootcamp friend, thank you so much. I really like that note. love alice
ReplyDeleteHope you didn't mind me going there - your post really touched me.
ReplyDeleteBC friend
Bravo, Alice. Takes strength to face the fallible, flawed natures of our parents, but that has helped me face the fallible, flawed pieces of myself and of my children and spouse.
ReplyDeleteIt WAS a generational thing, but it still stings those wounds--the strap, the absence from the vomiting (my mom, too, was never there, my sister and I once realized after our first bouts of kids' stomach flu), the cavalier approach to young hurts and worries. We can understand their context, we can forgive them, but there's no point in minimizing the painful fallouts. As you said, it bubbles up in bad habits and, for me, in self-righteous rage as a mother.
When I think about my mom's trigger happy spanking hand (more with my younger siblings, which brings its own scars, my bearing witness to that), I also think about her lack of help and support. No mothers' groups, no therapists, no blogging(!). I certainly empathize with her rage and frustration and I have tons more resources.
But looking it squarely in the eye DOES help. I firmly believe that. And, in its own weird way, honors the realness of our mothers. They weren't just 1950s pretty girls with their cheery smiles and sweet dresses (though, of course, they were that, too). They were complicated, difficult, impassioned, embittered, hopeful, callous, wise and frivolous..real people.
As are we. When I think about the dark memories my daughters will carry, I do wince. I hope there's enough good and love layered in so that they will come away with the real...and forgiveness and empathy, too.
I thought I detected a whiff of the hidden in your first entry. I'm so proud of you for giving us more. It makes your mom more real to me, more interesting, more 3-dimensional. More alive.
An
To BC friend--no, i did not mind at all. i thank you for your note. It was really insightful and helpful. love alice
ReplyDeleteDear Kim, thank you for your very thoughtful reply. I think the end may be cut off? I really appreciate all you said. you are so right, our mothers had far fewer support resources than we do. The internet can connect us to everyone, wherever we live, and we can find people with similar struggles. I was talking to my friend tonight and telling her how hard it was to post this, but that I wanted to face the ugly a bit more now that I turned 50. I want to be real about things. "Yes," said. "Your mother would want you to be healed. And you can't be healed through denial." thank you, Kim. love alice
ReplyDelete