The mom you never had

Today is Mother’s Day–my first since my Mom died–and it’s a holiday that’s always been complicated.

Women face so much guilt and social pressure around motherhood. There is social pressure to have kids–I’ve felt this as a woman who chose not to–and a pervasive sense that whatever you do or choose, it will never be right.

You’re wrong if you have children and choose to continue working, and you’re wrong if you have children and stay at home. You’re wrong if you have children too soon or late in life, wrong if you have too many or too few children, and especially wrong if you choose not to have children at all. And of course, anything you do once you have kids is wrong: you’ll be blamed for being too stern or too lax, and you’ll be blamed for your children’s bad behavior or poor choices, no matter how old they are.

Years ago, my Mom told me that being a wife and mother means there’s always someone who hates you: your kids hate you when you’re too strict, and your husband hates you when you aren’t strict enough. No matter what you do, she said, someone will disapprove…and this bit of motherly truth gave me permission to choose my own child-free path. If someone is going to judge me no matter what I choose, why not do what I want?

Mother’s Day is complicated for children as well as moms: there are expectations for daughters, and I have unfinished business here. I have never regretted my decision not to have kids, but I continually regret not being there for my Mom as the Daughter Who Left. I sometimes tell colleagues that my Mom never forgave me for going to college, and what this means is I’ve never forgiven myself. I still regret not being more present during my Mom and Dad’s senior years, and I still regret not being there (because of work, geography, and other obligations) when each of them died.

Years ago when I was going through my divorce, I realized one of the things you grieve isn’t what you had in your marriage, but the things you wanted and never got. When you leave a marriage, you close the door on any possibility that your former spouse will ever give you the things you craved. You’re mourning the death of a dream as much as the loss of an actual reality.

In the months since my Mom died, I’m realizing the same kind of complicated grieving applies in this case, too. When your mother dies, you mourn the Mom you had–the flesh and blood person with all her quirks and characteristics–but you also mourn the Mom you never had, but wanted. Never on this side of the grave will your Mom give you the unlimited affection, attention, or approval you craved, and never on this side of the grave will succeed in being the perfect daughter.

They say a woman’s work is never done, and I’ll add that the relationship between mother and child is always unfinished, always imperfect, and always complicated. No matter what you do as a mother or child, someone will judge you for it, so try not to let that harsh critic be you.

 

Saturday stroll

Today was the Watch City Steampunk Festival, so if you took a Saturday stroll through Waltham Common today, you might have wondered why everyone was dressed slightly fancier than usual.

CLICK HERE to see more photos from today. Enjoy!

 

Now & wren

Just over a year ago, I blogged a similar photo of a Carolina wren on the fence that separates our driveway from a neighbor’s backyard. Back then, I saw the wren in the morning, when I was taking out the trash; today, I saw the wren when I was taking Roxy inside after her after-dinner bathroom break.

Is this the same wren I saw just over a year ago, or another one? There’s no way to know for certain. We frequently hear Carolina wrens in and around our yard: they are common in the Boston suburbs, but more often heard than seen.

Now as then, I would have never seen this bird if it hadn’t been scolding loudly, as if to attract my attention in order to express its displeasure over my very existence. Wrens are more often heard than seen, and Carolina wrens seem to think humans are best when they aren’t around at all.

 

In bloom

The horse chestnut in our backyard is blooming. Every Spring, horse chestnuts bloom as I’m grading final papers and projects, and every Fall, horse chestnuts drop ripe buckeyes as the new academic year begins.

Every year, it’s reassuring to realize Mother Nature is busy doing her job right as I’m busy doing mine.

 

Everyone’s a critic

Today I took a grading break to meet A (not her real initial) at the Worcester Art Museum, where we saw an exhibit of 21st century landscape photography. Before we entered any of the galleries, however, I spotted this bit of social commentary in one of the women’s bathroom stalls. In a museum, even the bathroom graffiti is profound.

 

Birds past and present

This morning, our backyard was full of birdsong: the buzzy beer-beer-beez of the year’s first black-throated blue warbler, the bursting whistles of a Baltimore oriole, the upward buzz ending in a sneeze of a Northern parula, and the zee-zee-zee-zu-zee of a black-throated green warbler.

Before writing my morning journal pages, I dipped into my Mom’s diary to see what early May looked like in years past. On May 7, 2006, my Mom and Dad saw a prothonotary warbler, orioles, and a red-bellied woodpecker at Hoover Reservoir in Westerville, Ohio; two pairs of nesting ospreys on Hogback Road in nearby Delaware; and a pair of adult bald eagles flying around a nest in an undisclosed location.

I don’t know why it feels important to chronicle bird sightings, but my Mom did it, and so do I. Birds–especially migratory species–are ephemeral and elusive: here today, gone tomorrow. This morning, I saw a male cardinal preening on a backyard branch: as I have in the past, I wondered if it was a sign from my Mom and Dad, or just the kind of bird we regularly see in our suburban backyard.

I don’t know what this or other birds mean, but I consider it my duty to notice, name, and make note of them.

 

Reading fast and slow

This morning I started reading my massive hardback copy of Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water. I tend to read two books at a time: my ears listen to audiobooks when I’m playing with the dog or doing chores, and my eyes read Kindle or print books when I’m done with work for the day. In the case of Covenant, I’m opting to read a physical copy since I’ll be moderating an online book group discussion next month, so I want to take notes as I read.

I have different strategies for reading books in different formats. Listening to an audiobook is an experience of pure enjoyment, like having someone read me a story. Since I use Hoopla to borrow audiobooks from the library, I am more willing to try titles I wouldn’t necessarily buy. A borrowed audiobook is free to me, so my expectations are more forgiving.

Reading on a Kindle is easier than reading a print copy: even the weightiest tome fits comfortably in my palm or purse, and I can read in any light. But although I can highlight passages on a Kindle, I hardly ever do. When it comes to taking notes, I prefer the old-school technique of underlining and writing marginal notes in a print copy.

This weekend, I heard on NPR a story about so-called deep reading: the kind of full immersion that is the opposite of skimming and happens only when you’re not being interrupted at every turn. (Deep reading is also slow reading, so it’s the opposite of listening to audiobooks at double-speed.) Although I have the Kindle app installed on my phone, I hardly ever read on it; instead, I prefer to read on my actual Kindle, where I’m not interrupted by email or other notifications.

Print books, of course, don’t interrupt you with online notifications. With a book as thick as The Covenant of Water, however, I’ll have to develop my upper body strength to heft the thing.

 

An occasional oriole song

After a warm winter, we’re having a cold spring. Today has been gray and dreary, with a lingering threat of rain: a day that feels more like March than May, but with an occasional oriole song.

 

Double-time

Tonight J and I are going to a library fundraiser featuring remarks by Drew Gilpin Faust and George Mumford. I always try to read the most recent books by the keynote authors at this event, so over the past few weeks I listened to audio versions of Faust’s Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury and Mumford’s Unlocked: Embrace Your Greatness, Find the Flow, Discover Success.

In order to finish both books by tonight’s event, I listened to them at double-speed: a trick I learned from one of my former students, who several years ago wrote a literacy narrative about listening to audiobooks at double- or even triple-speed as a way of accommodating his ADHD.

In my case, I don’t have a problem listening to books at normal speed…but given that I read faster than most people talk, speeding up an audiobook more accurately matches the speed at which I read. And when I’m in a hurry to finish a book, speeding up the audio is a no-brainer.

Whenever I start a new audiobook, I initially listen at normal speed in order to acclimate myself to the reader’s voice and mannerisms. Once I have the narrator’s voice and natural cadence in my head, I experiment with speeding up the audio: does 1.5x speed sound natural and brisk, but not hurried? What about 2x speed?

Once I find a speed that doesn’t sound too much like The Chipmunks, I listen at that speed until the almost-end of the book, when I return to regular speed, which subsequently seems ohhhhh… sooooo… slooooow.

 

When Harry met Meghan

I’m currently reading Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare. When the book first came out, it inspired lots of fuss and hoopla, with royal-watchers rushing to read it and critics of the monarchy in general or Prince Harry in particular refusing to read it at all.

Although I don’t have any urgent curiosity to know about Prince Harry’s life, I was curious to know what all the hype around his book was about. Whether written by celebrities, ordinary people, or royal heirs, memoirs are interesting because they offer a window into someone else’s world, and Spare does not disappoint.

Spare begins with Princess Diana’s death when Prince Harry was twelve. That loss defines much of what follows, with Harry struggling to process his grief in a family where demonstrations of emotion are rare. Refusing to admit his mother is actually dead, young Harry tells himself that his mother is merely hiding from the paparazzi and will reappear someday to reclaim her sons.

Choosing to go straight into the military instead of going to college, Harry is eager to go into active combat even though his royal status makes him a prime target. Having experienced the death of his mother at a tender age, Harry doesn’t seem to care what happens to his life, as death has already stolen the best of him.

I’m about halfway through the book, when Prince Harry finally meets actress Meghan Markle, whom he eventually marries. It’s difficult not to root for the couple, given Harry’s honest description of his struggles with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Although being born as a runner-up (spare) heir to a throne might seem like the ultimate form of job security, Spare describes a young man trying to find his way in the world, and meeting Meghan Markle seems to give Harry a new clarity and purpose.

When you read a memoir by a well-known person, you start the story already knowing how it will end. But halfway through Spare, I’m still eager to learn what exactly happens next.

CLICK HERE to read a post from nearly a year ago, when I had a nonsensical dream about meeting Prince Harry around an office watercooler.