Mothers, mothers mothers…

I’ve been thinking about mothers and motherhood–I mean, sure, we all have–it’s the most important, complicated relationship in our lives, isn’t it? But I’ve been thinking about it more than usual. As a mother, and as a child. You know when there’s a concept that you’re thinking about and everything else you read and see seems to come back to that? I’m there with motherhood, in this really full-body way. We’ve always had a complicated thing, me and my mother, not in a particularly difficult way, but because we are so different and so similar and from two different cultures and from the same culture. I love that lady very, very deeply–my very existence feels so dependent on her. When I was a child I would check her breathing in the night. (There, I told you something super weird about me as a kid, that’s the emotional equivalent of being blood brothers) Even now, when she is so far away and not part of my daily life, the thought of the fact of her mortality can bring tears to my eyes. Yesterday Hurricane was calculating what her age would be when he graduates high school, and I had to go find something else to do.

But as tethered as I am to her, I wonder whether I know her at all. Whether I see her at all. Whether the mask she wears, of mother, of my mother blinds me from actually knowing her. What a shame that would be. A few years agp, I came across the poet Marge Piercy through this 4 part poem, “My Mother’s Body” which destroyed me. I had to read it over several months. Seriously. Had to put the print out down and walk away. Here’s section 3 below. Holy. Shit. Right? Read that last stanza–“My twin, my sister, my lost love,/I carry you in me like an embryo/as once you carried me.” Right? How are you carrying your mother in you? What parts of your personality, your mannerisms, the way you fold socks or scrape a plate or lay out your clothes or navigate the world have been passed down. This is inclusive of men here–so don’t you dudes act like this ain’t a prompt for you.

Send me your poems, I’ll send you my love. Actually even if you don’t send me poems, I’m sending love. It’s the only thing I know to do when the world is constantly repeating its own mistakes. I learned it from my mom.

From “My Mother’s Body,” By Marge Piercy

3.

What is this mask of skin we wear,
what is this dress of flesh,
this coat of few colors and little hair?

This voluptuous seething heap of desires
and fears, squeaking mice turned up
in a steaming haystack with their babies?

This coat has been handed down, an heirloom
this coat of black hair and ample flesh,
this coat of pale slightly ruddy skin.

This set of hips and thighs, these buttocks
they provided cushioning for my grandmother
Hannah, for my mother Bert and for me

and we all sat on them in turn, those major
muscles on which we walk and walk and walk
over the earth in search of peace and plenty.

My mother is my mirror and I am hers.
What do we see? Our face grown young again,
our breasts grown firm, legs lean and elegant.

Our arms quivering with fat, eyes
set in the bark of wrinkles, hands puffy,
our belly seamed with childbearing,

Give me your dress that I might try it on.
Oh it will not fit you mother, you are too fat.
I will not fit you mother.

I will not be the bride you can dress,
the obedient dutiful daughter you would chew,
a dog’s leather bone to sharpen your teeth.

You strike me sometimes just to hear the sound.
Loneliness turns your fingers into hooks
barbed and drawing blood with their caress.

My twin, my sister, my lost love,
I carry you in me like an embryo
as once you carried me.