“I wonder if my children will ever really know me?” My friend, mother of four, grandmother of many, asked me this when she was sixty-something. At this time she had become a certified counselor for elders encouraging them to uncover their own wisdom. This moment redacts in my memory at thoughtful moments of quiet. Another question seems even more pressing; “Did I every really know my own mother?” During my long years in therapy, this was not a question that I asked, nor did my therapist. During incessant self-absorption, I kept asking: “Does my mother really know me?” I wasn’t…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Today when I visit my mother at the dementia center, one of the residents convinces several of her companions there is a cat on a nearby roof. She can see it, she says, and I assure her that I can see it too, though I’m pretty sure she’s talking about a dark vent that stands out against surrounding gray shingles. Others say they see it, and then they begin to worry about the poor cat. I tell her that cats are resourceful and this one surely knows a way down. Later, one of the women shows us something on her…
Growing up in the shadow of my absentee Vietnam War veteran father, it always seemed like I inherited some, and too much, of his post-service sensibilities—he was diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder before his second tour finished. I’ve always suspected much of my hyper-vigilant survivalism, and fear of people and divinity, is connected to how he was when he and my mother conceived me. Or maybe the Vietnam War is just an easily accessible historical context in which I can place him in order to connect with him in some tangible way? In any case, as an adolescent this desire…
Mama needed a ride home from work so I went for her. As I was pulling out of the lot behind the grocery store where she was a clerk in the deli, I said, “We gotta stop somewhere; Ray wants some cigarettes.” Mama turned and looked out the side window. Had she heard me? Maybe I didn’t say anything. I’d kept my voice low, tried to keep the words even like we were ordinary, but maybe I only imagined myself speaking. “How you know?” she asked. “He called me. Said if I was picking you up to get him some…
There are Mothers of Invention, Motherlodes, Holy Mothers, Mother #%*!-ers & Mother tongues. We give birth to a child, a book, a business venture or a song. We are born, reborn & born again. While the umbilical cord that connected us to our mothers may be recalled only by the depression in the middle of our bellies, the unseen cords to “Mother’s Energy” seem unbreakable, uncut-able, and pulse content-rich for an entire lifetime. Just ask anyone with even a modicum of experience in psychotherapy or perhaps a knowledge of literature. It would stand to reason then that one’s relationship (actual…
Mom Egg contributor RH Douglas passed away last week. Cheryl Boyce Taylor writes of her, “She was a brave Warrior/Poet/Trini/Mother-Woman-Wildness. Say a prayer for her peace and safe travel.” In Rodlyn’s memory, we are re-printing a poem of hers originally published on our Myspace blog in May,2008. Benediction by R.H. Douglas The Sun is warm here My heart opens To its rays. Salt water sprays my face. Grit washed away. I leave the excited city, A chiseled world, To find my soul in the ocean’s rhythms. Bless me Mother. Mother of the deep You who do not sleep. Do…
My fifth grader thinks she’s slick when we are getting ready for school, that if her lip gloss is subtly applied, or combined with a lighter shade, I won’t notice her slightly rosier lips as we are heading out the door. I could tell Selena to wipe it off. I am her mother after all, but I pick my battles, and there is my own relationship to lip products. At seven, I was obsessed with Maybelline’s Kissing Potion in Strawberry, which was as sweet and sticky as it was shiny. I couldn’t lick my lips fast enough once it was…
This story does not have an ending, I am unfolding as a mother, as a writer, as a friend, as a wife, as a daughter and as an individual every moment. There are things that no woman tells another about motherhood. I will tell you this: I died. It was not childbirth. My labors were long and hard and beautiful. I have given birth twice: once to a screaming soul who shattered my idealistic visions of motherhood, the second time to an infant so ancient she didn’t utter a sound as she was lifted by the midwife from the water…
A girl finds out something new about her mother’s second husband. A teenager succumbs to the lure of adventure on a Haitian night. A non-observant grandmother attempts to explain a religious holiday to a child. A grown man fails to replicate his mother’s recipe. A self-righteous teacher’s poisonous attitude pervades a classroom. Strengths emerge after a child’s dire diagnosis, a difficult divorce, the death of a parent. This issue of The Mom Egg is our first theme issue, on the subject of “Lessons”. It was inspired, in part, by a spoken word/performance piece by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor and RH Douglas, “Home…
I’ve been birthing a collection of poems about raising a gay daughter since she came out at fifteen. That was four years ago. I didn’t realize I was writing a collection on this theme but my role as mother had shifted and I had to find a way to explore my feelings about Mollie (my girl) and what was happening inside myself. As I wrote and lived my relationship with my daughter, this art of documenting my experience also expanded into a political/feminist role as I fought for gay rights, GENDA laws and protecting gay children in schools. It has…