Motherhood and Writing

Motherhood changed my writing life. I have gone from needing church silence to being able to write in my living room where my husband and son are loudly interacting with televised sports, or my daughter is playing piano. I’ve learned to ignore even the dog when he is in rabbit-mode, ears back and running through the rooms, then freezing into a John Bellushi-Animal House stance. I think this was a gradual evolution. I used to retreat to a corner in the attic when the children were toddlers and I convinced myself my emotional distance could be increased through stairs. I wrote several books up there, and only came down to work when my laser printer gave up the ghost, and my husband bought me a laptop.

Now, I am happiest writing near a window with a coffee pot close, and passersby in view. I like watching the UPS trucks come and go, the neighborhood dogs sniffing my dandelions, the gaggle of youngsters making its way down the block to the local theater from one of our neighborhood schools. I like being reminded of the reality beyond my keyboard even as I choose to ignore it. This attentiveness I attribute to motherhood.

At college, I remember causing several food explosions when I would try to cook and write simultaneously. I would park my blue, Brother electric typewriter on our dinette table overlooking the duck pond at our off-campus apartment, and settle in to work. Neither the rhythm of the machine nor the return bell distracted the voice in my head as it spilled onto the page. Unremarkably, I managed to work up an appetite moving only my fingers. I had staples on hand, eggs, bread, hot dogs, and M&Ms. I was always low-carbing then (except for the chocolate) so I stayed away from the bread, and would boil either hot dogs or eggs. It wasn’t so bad when hot dogs exploded. They quietly burst apart leaving pink shreds pretty close to the stove, and were greasy enough to be easily washed away. But when the browned and crusty hard boiled eggs blew, they released the worst of all stinks, and my roommates would be justifiably offended. They could never understand how I could lose track of time so completely.

Boiling eggs do warn you with aural cues; they rattle against each other, against the pot. I can promise you I hear them now from a room away. In fact, now I can hear through doors and walls. I can wake up running from a dead sleep and magically appear at the bathroom doorway when one of my children is sick. Motherhood sharpens your hearing, even while it allows you to tune out the most repetitive video game. You can discern the slightest inflection in your child’s after-school voice, and know lunch didn’t go well. You can take a temperature with your lips, sniff out a bad cold cut, read dejection on a ball field from yards and yards away, and feel each second pass until your child arrives home safely. Motherhood makes your senses that acute, and won’t ever allow you to leave a stove unattended.

Finding the Right Mother's Day Gift

As we approach Mother’s Day I recall the agony of trying to choose an appropriate gift for my departed mother. My mother was difficult to please, and this was never so evident as when she opened my gifts. Unlike the more Americanized mothers, mine was Italian and quick to express her feelings.
One year I bought silk flowers in a small glass vase, because I knew real ones would never be welcome. Within an hour, my father phoned my apartment to ask me how much the gift cost. The entire arrangement was twenty-five dollars, but apparently the vase was tagged three dollars; my mother had looked underneath the gift, and was immediately insulted. My father tried to convince her that I didn’t undervalue her.
I learned the hard way, cheap or expensive didn’t matter. I failed at it all. Perfume, clothes, jewelry, no matter how carefully I tried to pick out the perfect present, she would exhibit some sign of disappointment, be it the soft sigh, the forced thank you, or even the more direct “What the hell did you buy this for?” Yet for a non-event I could show up with a donut and she’d be happy for the thought. In fact, any used item was even more appreciated.
One Christmas I bought a ruby necklace, spending four times my budgeted allotment. It would be worth every penny to have my gift appreciated. Ruby was her birthstone, so I couldn’t imagine her not loving the extra care I took to pick it out. My mistake. From the moment she dangled it from her hand, I knew she hated it. I could feel my heart itself swaying back and forth with the necklace, as she rocked it in disbelief. But in case I didn’t pick up on the clue, she twisted her mouth and reminded me she had asked for a battery operated TV. Still, I didn’t admit defeat.
My mother had amassed a collection of home-recorded tapes from the food network. I stumbled upon a New York Times award-winning recipe tape. I thought for sure this was a no-brainer. I wasn’t going to give her something I thought she needed. I was going to give her something I knew she liked. Wrong again. In fact, she could not understand why I would pay money for something she could get for free off the food channel. A discussion ensued, and my father, uncle, and aunt came to my defense. I don’t think I said much that night, except to myself, vowing never again to do more than write a check, or place cash in an envelope.
That was not the last gift I gave my mother, though it was the last one I gave her while she was alive. When she died I gave the undertaker a pair of my shoes that had been in and out of high rises in New York City, places I suspected she would have enjoyed if she had been born a generation later, and given the opportunities I was lucky enough to have. Whatever she disliked about my life no longer mattered. Her negative comments about my gifts just gave me something else to hold onto, one more precious memory of her. But I’d like to think she liked the shoes. I’d like to think that one gift said it all.