There was cruelty in the way she did it. And no matter how many times I asked her to stop, she refused.
But then, there was cruelty in the way she approached many of those she professed to love, and I still feel the sting of her words, and the burn of her unanticipated rages. They appear in my otherwise pristine dreams. They echo among my lost and fading voices. At moments, I am afraid it is her face I see in the mirror, her body emerging out of mine, her invective coiling up to strike, venomous as the rattler.
But no, I am mistaken.
* * * * *
The New England winters are long and the dawn is brittle, worsened by her insistence that the thermostat be set below 60. She is a bear of a woman, and always flushed with some hidden source of heat. I imagine she never feels the cold.
But I long for the clank and moan of the old radiators, water permitted to flow freely through their functional passages, the press of my body against the painted metal for those few minutes of warmth: I can toast my back and my hands before dressing, then hurrying out the door to school.
Most mornings, I huddle under the covers for as long as possible, buried beneath layers of blue woolen blankets from Filene’s, and a thin white coverlet with careful stitching but little weight.
I sleep until she enters – never knocking, always boisterous – and she marches straight to the window and snaps up the heavy white shade. It hits the top of the frame with a loud “thwack” and she bellows: “Rise and shine!”
And she laughs.
I hate daybreak. I hate winter. I hate this woman who disregards my requests, my need for separateness. I hate this woman who will not see or hear me, and instead, she laughs.
* * * * *
This morning, I wake my son as usual. Quietly, I say his name.
I try several times and the clock is ticking. We cannot be late again, but I see traces of paper and balsa wood around me – another project leans against his stack of books.
I can only assume that he worked through the night. I say his name one last time and he begins to stir. I stand a little closer and bend, whispering: Rise and shine, my lovely son.
* * * * *
Do you ever notice that syllables sound themselves out and string themselves into meaning, tumbling out of your mouth to your own surprise? Do you wonder why they didn’t disintegrate decades earlier, and where they lodged themselves in their dormant state?
Are you stymied when they seem to resonate, suddenly, with an entirely other sensibility?
* * * * *
In winter, I set the thermostat to 72 degrees and I still layer on a sweater and a scarf in my house. In winter, I sleep under comforters and throws.
In my home, there is no dismissal of opinions, of privacy, of necessary comfort – everyone’s comfort. In my home, there are no rituals that flex the muscles of disrespect.
Instead, there are gentle awakenings, awareness that the hours may be dark and draining. There is the shared experience of working hard.
* * * * *
This morning I speak words from an unknown center, hearing them newly, imagining what it would be like to wake to the image of a rising sun, to the pleasures of shining brightly, to the certainty and evenness of a parent’s love, to the register of love.
I wonder why my mother’s words formed an assault, projected daily in disciplinary fashion, such that I could never process their potential – or our potential, as mother and daughter.
I think of the years of missed opportunities, unable to comprehend the woman who raised me, the mother who squandered her radiant face, the mother whose pain possessed her, the mother who poisoned so many beginnings, the mother whose cruelty knotted our ending.
In her shadow and her light, I deliver a message to my sleeping son, a message that serves as a directive to rise, and I hope, encouragement to shine.
© D A Wolf
Oh Wolfie. This is so bittersweet, the shortcomings of your mother and your brave determination to be a better mother yourself. Those first moments of every day make such a difference – I’m sure your son appreciates your gentle way.
Eva – So nice to hear from you. I think we all try to do better than our parents, if we look back at our upbringing and see deficits that go beyond the usual well-intentioned mistakes. I hope my sons will carry strength and gentleness forward, into their adulthood. How often we believe these are mutually exclusive, especially in our parenting.
It is so hard to know what causes people to become what they are, even if they are our parents. In many ways the world was harsher when they were young and tenderness was less valued. It is sad that too many of us do not have loving memories of our parent(s). But it can be a fine line between being loving and being too lenient.
It’s amazing how visceral and painful experiences long past can remain, and how they can continue fueling us so many years later.
My mother would wake us up by yelling at us from her makeshift bed on the couch (which is where she landed and never moved from after returning home from work). In my home, there is no early-morning yelling and the couch is a place to gather and connect rather than a formidable fortress we weren’t allowed to take comfort in.
Your memories of your mother and how they’ve shaped your life resonate so deeply.
@Carol – There can be a fine line between tenderness and leniency, and when you are outnumbered by kids, sometimes leniency is the result of sheer fatigue. But cruelty is easy to recognize, and there’s never a good enough reason for that. Not in my book.
@Kelly – I’m sorry you, too, know what it is to be greeted by yelling when what you need is something very different. But I know so well from reading you that your wise, generous heart has certainly taken a different route with your children. Perhaps we should be grateful for what has marked us deeply, if it has encouraged us to find better ways to deal with others, and some compassion for our own faults along the way.
Lovely, BLW—at the psychological level you are healing trauma by arriving at a safe place and using your writerly mind to create a coherent narrative out of what could only be, for difficult years, chaotic terror in your infant mind, the one that received the full brunt and download of a terrified and chaotic mother (no doubt unresolved for her own traumas and losses). By being coherent about your own traumas, you see that you can be the parent you may only wish you had had (and thus heal, paradoxically, by bravely, and with much productive suffering, giving what you did not get).
And… on the archetypal level, you come to brave terms with the Shadow Mother/Wicked Witch in the service of protecting the magical child/Puella, partly in aligning with/partly in becoming, the Good Mother.
Now weave in the Animus, that sexy French Madman, who dwells within the realm of your psyche… together your poetic soul (Anima) and he, your masculine/practical/effective self, conceive another sort of child in the build-up to your second son’s impending launch; now you birth and foster a different order of consciousness, one poised to rise (at a safe and attuned pace) and shine with redemptive love and well-earned good karma.
Here’s to mentally checking your child-self into a Chateau & Relais hotel and taking cozy care of her until, just maybe, the world rises up to meet your inner reality and mirror it back to you. One never knows… and, either way, if the inner world becomes safe, the outer world becomes the potential play space it might have always been, had you developed in a safe place (but then your soul might not have grown to run as deep or as compassionate).
Namaste
You always give me so much to think about, Bruce. Thank you for that.
You have compassion also for your mother. What a shining soul you are. Reminds me of the Robert Hayden (1913-1980) poem about his father:
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
This is gorgeous, NoName. Thank you for this elegant, rich poem.
You are a good, good mother. It’s as simple as that.
I hear the echos of my childhood when you write of yours. And it hurts. But you are soothing the memories and the hurts, as you embrace and enact mothering in your own way now. With love, respect, and a consciousness of who you are as a parent. So you did indeed, rise and shine, after all.
@Di – Always lovely when you stop by from the other side of the world. I am sorry you hear the echoes of your childhood in mine, but maybe in sharing this, it eases the pain. We don’t feel so alone, do we. And we can see that from challenging times we can parent differently. Thank you for your beautiful comment, Di.
@Jack – Strange to feel inhabited by our parents’ voices at times, isn’t it?
@Wolf – I’d never heard these definitions before. So powerful.
@Gale – Thank you. Wonderful words from you, and so much appreciated.
I once read definitions of fear, terror and horror which went something like this: Fear is when a bear is chasing you, but your parent is between you and the bear. Terror is when the bear slips by the parent, who can no longer protect you. Horror is when the bear is your parent.
Sometimes I speak and hear my father’s voice coming from my mouth. Most of the time I am bemused by it, but every once in a while I find myself saying the thing I swore never to say.
Our parents make quite an impact upon us.
This post has left me breathless. Exquisite.
This is powerful… You had me hooked and I am glad I had the time to read it today. My mom is a morning person who greeted the day, and woke me, with song and delight. I am not a morning person and so found this sunny side of her stressful… And yet, in retrospect, I recognize something I didn’t before… she embraced the day and started it with happiness… I entered the day with a completely different attitude.
Today I wake my daughter differently every morning… sometimes in rush and other times with a cuddle… and I am more aware this morning of the methods.
Poignant and evocative BLW. I am certain it was a painful to write, but perhaps strangely cathartic.
I hear the pain of the child and can only hope that I heed the warning. I love my children but there are times when I hear my mother’s sharp tone much to my dismay.
Beautifully written and so poignant. I’m glad you can separate past experiences from the present. I’m sure your sons have benefited from that talent. Lately, I’ve noticed phrases a la mom coming out of my mouth. Not caustic phrases, just the way she responds to things. It’s very strange since we live half a state away, and I don’t spend a lot of time around her. I agree with your response to Carol. There is a fine line between tenderness and leniency. We all cross back and forth occasionally. You experienced cruelty in your childhood, which is an awful thing for a child to go through. But I can’t help but wonder if it’s made you the exceptional parent you are today.
I cried reading this. So poignant. Such softening did I recieve. Thank you.
I think that’s one of the most precious gifts in life: releasing something painful and making it your own. I’m glad you’ve done it. (And you shine, too.)