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Letter from Joyce Archives
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April 15, 2007
Dear Friends,
Conventional media wisdom would have it that the time for publishing features about mothers is May, in honor of the holiday that owes its success to the Hallmark Greeting Card company, Mothers' Day. As for me, though I tend to locate any excuse I can to throw a party and celebrate, I've never been a fan of that particular holiday, or its companion day, Fathers' Day. I can't get past the idea that identifying one particular day as the time to honor mothers seems to suggest we can forget about them the rest of the year. Then too, there's this insidious little theme that keeps creeping into mother-worship (particularly if you start reading what they say on the cards): namely, the idea that what's so great about mothers is how they never think about themselves, only their children. They're always so self-sacrificing. Never asking for anything. (So... we give them a bouquet of carnations on the first Sunday in May, and keep them happy another twelve months.)
I got into the self sacrifice game pretty heavily myself, for a bunch of years there, when my kids were little, and not so little, but with the perspective that sadly comes only when the last one's gone, and you're sitting alone at last, in the house that used to be cluttered with their sneakers and backpacks. A little late to reap the benefits in my own family, I have come to the conclusion everyone would have done just fine if I'd been a little less self denying, a little less ready to convey the message that I had no needs, but their happiness. Understand, please: my children have turned out to be wonderful, kind, generous, compassionate people -- no complaint here. But all that self-sacrifice (the same kind my mother engaged in, and her mother before her) probably contributed to a fair amount of guilt on my part. One of the least constructive emotions, if you ask me.
I haven't had a mother now for eighteen and a half years, and still, I think about mine -- and the complicated mix of fierce love and frustration, impatience, joy and suffocation that came with being her daughter -- every day of my life. Eighteen years since she took her last breath, I still hear her voice in my ear, and feel, still, the longing to tell her what's going on. (Most of all, I wish she could see my children. Which is telling, perhaps. She was probably better suited to being a grandmother than being a mother. Grandmotherhood diluted the strong dose of her, and allowed my children -- most particularly my daughter -- to get the best, without the hard part.)
I'm not alone in struggling with this mother business, of course. Over my many years of getting letters from readers of my work -- always one of my favorite parts of this writing life of mine -- one theme that never goes away is the challenge most women feel (men too, I think, but women talk about it more) of making peace with their mothers. I've been so struck by the degree to which this theme figures in the writing that students of mine bring to my workshops that I sometimes say (and I'm not kidding when I do) that maybe I should just host a workshop called "Dealing with Your Mother in Writing." (One final note on this: through the wonders of technology, the website Amazon.com offers an amazing feature, that analyzes a particular writer's book and shows you what the words are that show up with greatest frequency in its pages. A friend of mine once ran a check for me on my memoir At Home in the World. You might think the word would be Salinger, but you'd be wrong. He was actually a secondary character in that story. The starring role went to my mother -- and it was the word "mother" that ranked first in the tally.)
With all of this
in mind, I decided a single day, or even a single month, might not be
sufficient to address the topic of mothers here. So for the next few weeks
(thanks to the great new computer program I told you about last week,
that now allows me to open up all kinds of old writing of mine that had
been written on long-defunct writing programs) I'm going to be sending
you a variety of my writings about my mother, published over the course
of the years since her death. (And possibly before.) Some of these ran
in magazines, or in the New York Times "Hers" column, or in
my old syndicated column, "Domestic Affairs." (And by the way,
a tape is available, of the series of columns I published over the months
I cared for my mom while she was dying, originally broadcast on New Hampshire
Public Radio. You can order "Nobody's Daughter Anymore" through
the catalogue on this
website. All proceeds of that and all other sales here, throughout
the year, going to the well-deserved Mother's Day gift of our peerless
webmistress and my longtime friend, Myrna Uhlig.)
So here comes the first in my Mother series. It was written back in 1996, seven years after my mother's death, and ran first in McCall's Magazine. Like so many of the stories about my mother, this one begins with food.
(And you wonder why I've also written about eating disorders?)
I call this one "My
Mother's Chutney." This first one, and the other stories I'll
be sharing over the next few weeks, will be located in a special addition
to the 'On Being a Parent' section of Columns
& Articles.
And by the way, to cap off our celebration of mothers, some time next month, I'd like to run a roundup of readers' observations of THEIR mothers. So send me a paragraph about your mother (and be sure to use MY email address). When the group reaches critical mass, I'll share them with my mailing list. Be sure to specify, too, whether or not you'd like your name given, and the state where you live. Not confusion, I trust.)
Yours, with friendship,
Joyce
Maynard
P.S. There is still space in both of the writing
workshops I'm hosting here in Mill Valley (California), described
on my website. If you live in the area -- or even if you don't -- why
don't you join me for the day?
RECOMMEND JOYCEMAYNARD.COM TO A FRIEND
