September 24, 2006

• Through Different Eyes

  I've written about my relationship with my mother and how much I wished it could be different.  How I felt that she judged me and found me wanting in a great many ways.  Well, sooner or later, maybe we all grow up. 

  I was nervous about my mother reading my book.  More nervous than I was about sending it in to Shadow Poetry's contest to begin with.  More nervous than I was about handing (parts of) it over for critique at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival workshop.  I expected that my mom would see all the flaws, and would find in the content more reasons to be disappointed in her daughter. 

  Boy was I wrong.

  She read critically through every poem in the way that every poet wishes someone would read her work.  We both laughed when she confessed that in her mind poetry is supposed to rhyme.  When my words didn't line up the way she expected them to, she had to set that aside and read with a whole new set of eyes.  She had comments about the content, about how she felt when she read it, and about how much she identified with many of the feelings I expressed in the book. 

  One poem in particular caused her to hesitate a little.  Because I wrote, "Momma taught me ..." and she knew that I wasn't talking about something that sounded familiar, so she put aside that language and read a little deeper and found a poem about people she knows in the town where I grew up and she still lives.  She saw all the rules and traditions I was describing and in the end, she said she could understand a little better why I had to break away.  (Even though she still wishes that I'd move back there.)

  Does it get any better than this?

  In every writing class and seminar I've ever attended we've talked about this issue of whether you say the diplomatic thing or whether you say the true thing.  There's a rather famous quote that usually gets brought up about how you can't really speak the truth as long as your parents are alive.  Up until now, I've understood that and felt like it applied to me.

  But here's the rub.  I DID speak the truth in my poems.  And my mother read them, understood them and accepted them in a way that I've longed for her to understand and accept me.  When I sent her copy, I wrote an autograph and inscription in the front cover.  She and my sister received theirs at the same time.  The inscription to my sister was longer, and a bit well, poetic.  To my mom I simply wrote ... "thanks."

  I've heard that there was some laughter about that with Mom pretending to have her feelings hurt over getting fewer words than Cheryl did.  But that inscription I gave her would be weakened if I tried to make it flowery.  And after the fact, I mean it even more.  Thank you, Mom.

  Just wait til you see my NEXT book ...

  

  

  My Mom on the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, August 2006

  • 11:04 am
  • 14 Comments