Oh what a delightful, and deep, little poem. “The Committee Weighs In” - I love this title, as the poem feels like an expression of that which has weightiness and that which is weightless… and seeing the insubstantiality of that which appears weighty (whoa, the Nobel prize! and yet, her mother’s “Again?” knocking it right off its pedestal; the weightiness of “dead” and yet “we play a game” seems somehow to supersede even the weight and seeming finality of death. And that’s where “we pretend” - I love this! - “that I’m somebody” - which could be in the I’m somebody special kind of way, or it could be also referring to the insubstantiality of “self” - that last line expressing the depth of Buddhist teachings on “no birth, no death.” Maybe the pretending carries the greatest wisdom? But mostly what moved me was her mom’s nonchalant response to her daughter’s announcement of winning the Nobel prize. And the conversation itself.
On my bday this year which marked 50 years since I transitioned out of my mom’s womb and it marked 100 days since my mom transitioned out of her earthly body - I committed to writing a letter to my mom every day. It’s been a profound practice, and support. “Whatever gets us through.” What my mom couldn’t do in her life (get her younger daughter to be consistent about many things!), she accomplished, mostly, through her death. The ongoing relationship… is everything. There is humor, sadness, regret, patience, connection, understanding, memory, imagination … and love. profound enduring love.
What is the role of our imagination?
The role of that which is invisible?
What are the stories we tell ourselves?
There are the material conditions of reality, undeniable. Yes. And then there is what we tell ourselves about it all. What we pay attention to. How we make meaning. This is the gift you repeatedly offer us, Pádraig, through the poetry you share, and your reflections, insights, questions, and invitations. Thank you!
There are the material conditions of reality, undeniable. Yes. And then there is what we tell ourselves about it all. What we pay attention to. How we make meaning.
Anyone else experience this? Having moved around a lot in my life means old friends surface at random intervals -- sometimes decades pass before we reconnect. What we remember about each other is often astonishing; little things I barely recall are often top front for them and vice versa. Memories must be like little stones we select and keep polishing. The surprise I suppose is which ones we quietly keep in our pockets year after year.
"What my mom couldn’t do in her life (get her younger daughter to be consistent about many things!), she accomplished, mostly, through her death." What a beautiful (encouraging, heartening) share. Thank you, Mona Chopra❤.
Mona, i don't know if i already shared my condolences with you when I noted your news a few months ago. I do so now, belatedly. Your daily letters to your mother is a very moving idea. And your relationship with your mother sounds beautiful. I had nothing like that with my mother - rather, much the opposite, i suppose. But, coincidentally, last month I started writing letters to my mother (and my father - both gone for several years now) as I seek to apply the brahmaviharas to my complicated relationship with them. I like the chinese translation of brahmavihara as "four infinite minds," which makes me feel like such letter-writing moves beyond the confines of our material/corporeal (i.e. this life) self to touch that or our beloved departed. Thank-you for your lovely reflections. They soothe my soul.
hello chris kindred spirit! thank you so much for your kind condolences. and what synchronicity that you too started to write letters to your mother (and father too)! I bow to your beautiful intention to apply the BVs to these most complicated often most difficult and deeply fraught relationships. I agree that such letter writing can indeed help us touch into or perhaps 'channel' the deepest parts of ourselves, our buddha nature, the buddha nature of our departed ones...something beyond, limitless, "infinite"... I think, imagine that alchemy is possible here... the energy can shift and that's how it continues to live in us, I think, so... the letters, the letters! I wonder if you have ever written letters from your mother and/or father back to you?
well, thank you, Chris, for reading, for your kind words and for sharing.
What moves you in it? And where does it move you to?
It brought me to tears, not the good cry I need, but at least a few tears to release some steam so that the pan doesn’t overflow on the stove.
I went and read the essay by Andrea Cohen and was further moved by the humor in the midst of life and grief and pain. It is like finding a friend you didn’t know you had, a fellow traveler who looks at life the way you do, who can talk of the serious stuff but why not laugh a little on the way to tears?
When my husband was dying, in fact the morning of the day he died, or maybe it's the day before? He died around 2 am so I guess this story would be the day before?
Anyway, he came out of the bathroom after showering. He stopped in the hallway and sort of bemoaned how much weight he had lost, how skinny he was. He said “I look like a praying mantis.” With his long body, arms, and legs and big ole head, he did. He did look like a praying mantis.
I love praying mantis. I make window box flower arrangements on our porch each year. And when I find one taking up residence in them, I am thrilled and overjoyed.
So when he said “I look like a praying mantis.”, I did not hesitate but said to him that you know how much I love praying mantis, do this and imitated the motion they make with their long arms. He did it. We both laughed and I helped him get back to the couch.
It is such a sweet memory to me. His last day on earth, our last little laugh together.
this story is beyond wonder......thank you so much for sharing it. I will never look at a praying mantis again without thinking of your poignant experience of lovingkindness and laughter at that moment in time.
Elaine, such a lovely treasure of a moment to keep in your heart always. I am glad you were gifted with that exchange of humor and tenderness. Thank you for sharing with us. May it fortify you with recurring moments of joy when you need it.
oh my. Elaine. what a tender story and such a testament to love! on so many levels. thank you for sharing. and "who can talk of the serious stuff but why not laugh a little on the way to tears?" -- oh yes! a secret fantasy that revealed itself to me only after I started working as an acupuncturist, was that evidently I actually want to be a comedian. laughter! humor. it saves us). thank you again for sharing this beautiful-painful story.
This lovely poem this morning invites me to imagine a game of noticing all the Nobel prize winners I encounter in a day. Nobel prize for kindness, patience, listening, honesty and vulnerability.
Sweet idea, Mary. You haven't noticed that in doing that, you are winning your own, more valuable Nobel prize for "presence." You're going to need a whole lot of that, while you are noticing those wonderful qualities of others. Whatever will you wear to the awards ceremony ;-) ? XO
So many things to like in this tiny poem. For me it’s what it says about the need for parental affirmation.
We know the speaker hasn’t actually won the Nobel Prize (it’s a game) but she imagines her mother not being surprised when she says she has. There’s no - don’t be ridiculous, are you joking or what? - in the mother’s response. This mother believes her child to be exceptional, capable of winning the prize multiple times.
My lovely Mum is long dead. When she was alive I worried for her approval, kept hidden things I thought she wouldn’t like. Now she isn’t here I’d be so glad to have her affirm the choices I’ve since made - becoming a poet, a second marriage, a move south. To conjure her up in a poem and have her applaud my current life would of course be a dream. My actual Mum would have more to say!
Perhaps, in any case, there are some things we can’t achieve while our mothers live? Perhaps that’s the great gift of poetry - that we can resurrect our lives, our people, our places and write a new script?
New script, yes! Cuts both ways. Some parents inflict an impossible one on their children, however well intended. Once they pass there can be a great freedom in rejecting it wholesale, making space for one which is custom fitted.
That last paragraph...but, really, this whole thing, Estelle. The parental affirmation. That stirs up things inside me that I suppose I hadn't considered. Or allowed would be a better word. Brings to mind a story from last summer.
This last paragraph. Poetry (writing) IS a great gift. I believe you are right (write?), that we can right a new script. Because, in a way, that is what poetry (ad writing) does for us, it rights something within us. Thanks for sharing!! XO
"Perhaps, in any case, there are some things we can’t achieve while our mothers live?" I think yes. At least I like to tell myself that, as I wonder why there are things I was simply not able to do while my Mom was still living here, in her body. I do think something shifts when the veil is crossed - for those on both sides. And, thank you for the hope! "Perhaps that’s the great gift of poetry - that we can resurrect our lives, our people, our places and write a new script?"
This early winter morning, this blog post is getting me through a difficult night of grief, loss, abandonment and anger. The humor and humanity of the poem is just the salve I needed, not quite salvation, but delicious nonetheless. Thank you, Padraig.
The poem’s title struck me this reading. “The Committee Weighs In” — of course, the Nobel Committee is the reference, but the title makes me think of how much stock we put into our parents’ (or parent’s) assessment of us.
I’m almost 52, and I believe my mother has grown to respect me, even to like me, but I haven’t always felt that way. I’ve always known she loved me, but I always knew I disappointed her in not being more feminine or more demure or more conventional. (My late father called me the “best son [he] ever had” — he has four sons and another daughter besides me — a comment I found insulting until I recognized that his rubric left me no other choice, so I should just take the compliment.)
Early harsh and near constant criticism — or confusing praise — can make a person grow up feeling as though a committee is constantly judging her every move (always harshly and near constant), no matter how far away she moves from home.
As I’ve come to trust that my own assessment of myself is the one that matters most, I am sometimes bemused by my mother’s struggle to deal with her own confusing feelings — I still don’t measure up to her standards, but she likes me, despite herself. And I am bemused by my own affection for this woman that my younger self would say deserves little reciprocation. I cannot help but give it now. She’s a harmless sweet little old lady — not a committee chair.
And I see that humor in this poem too, as they play their game.
Thank you for this. Poetry helps me understand the world, and myself.
Very wise, Maeve, that you have come to realize 1) that your own thoughts about you matter most because that's really all we can have control over and 2) that what others think of us is seen through a lens of their own feelings and emotions, including our moms. Thank you for sharing this! XO
Wow. What is glaringly obvious to me as I read this little poem is how badly I need to adjust the lens I look through. "I pretend I'm somebody, she pretends she isn't dead" strike me as profoundly sad. HOW IS IT THAT I SEE MELANCHOLY IN EVERYTHING??? I love, love, love Padraigh, that you read this poem through a lens of humor and play. As I close out this dismal year (see, I did it RIGHT THERE), I would like badly to scrub these lenses clean, stand at my own helm, and be on the lookout for JOY. For ease. For play. For laughter and connection, even with some folks who are no longer in my life. Some dead. Some just gone. Not everything has to be deadly earnest. Come on, Lyn. You've got this. Thanks, Padraigh.
Me as well! If read in a certain mood it can feel a bit like being haunted, like no matter your accomplishments in life they don't get you over the hurdles of those judgemental eyebrows!
Thank you Lyn, for the nudge towards reengaging with joy and lightness, giving them the first helpings of our attention.
I felt such a thud - shock and sadness - reading the last sentence too, Lyn! Along with playfulness and humor and depth... well, bows to you for your intention to be on the lookout for joy. in all it's interesting masks!
I love this poem. My mother played pretend all of her life, including telling the world that she was Peter Pan and would never grow up. Thus her death was hardly possible for me to believe. This poem takes me back to her time of pretend and happiness in the memory of it. Thank you.
It describes a relationship that exists, even though the two characters ‘exist’ on different planes (if one ascribes to that belief), with such an efficiency of words that I felt breathless. I was brought into instant focus, but rather than being left with melancholy or sadness, I felt comfort and joy. Well, it is the season for that, isn’t it? My mother is also dead. It made me think about the use of the word dead. Many would substitute “dead” with “passed” or some other contrivance to look at that state through frosted glass or under ripples of water, anything to avoid the clear fact of death. Here I felt the author was not only embracing death but telling us it was never going to end their relationship. It was lovely and sharp and soft and funny - all at once.
Thank you. I felt sad and wistful—didn’t have that kind of relationship with my mother who died 28 years ago, but also I grinned—for being able to experience a bit of their relationship and for the humor.
I did not have that kind of relationship with my mother either... but I did with my beloved Nana (who is 31 years gone from this plane). I have had so many conversations with her since she left... so many. But this poem makes me think that perhaps all those poems I have read out loud have been shared on more than one level. The best reason to read poetry out loud, if ever there was one!
The gentle tone, the wink and the nod, the soft fall off the cliff at the end. I would be right along side her beautiful and angry mother and storm into Mr. Thomas' office. How dare he?
And if you're lucky, you too miss your angry and beautiful mother who wrapped you in love and fury and left you with a loss that can never be fully grieved.
She once said when she was quite ill, " You don't like me Maighread" I was horrified that I had made this so clear!
As we both got older and my father died, we did discover some things in common. We both were interested in spirituality and children. I was a teacher in a primary school and mammy worked in a pre- school playgroup. We both could recognise the wonderful intelligence of children. Mammy died in 1999. I don't know if she would like me now and the decisions and choices I've made in my life. Perhaps I will take the advice of Mona and write and tell her of what I've been up to!
Oh this poem! It brings up so much with so few words.
My mother in law Ruthie died in 2018 and her ashes are in our dining room. Early on in the pandemic, she and I would have cocktail hour where I would bring her ashes out to the backyard.
She was a force of a woman with a razor sharp wit. One year, she was at our house for a holiday dinner and wanted to take a walk. I asked if she wanted me to come along since she didn't live in the area and she replied without a second's hesitation, "Why? Do you think there are gangs of youth trolling the streets for my virginity?"
Priceless.
A dear friend gave my husband a bell to ring when thinking of Ruthie (and another for me after my dad died). There is nothing sweeter than hearing that jingling from rooms away, knowing the two of them are conspiring together.
Andrea Cohen's poem is lovely and warms my heart with its combination of whimsy and bittersweetness. Alas, in response to your question, it moves me to sorrow. Or, rather, remembrance of sorrow - one that has taken me decades to understand and for which I have found a measure of equanimity. My mother and I also had a "little game" we would play - though not the fun kind. One of my earliest memories (really a memory of a memory but that's a longer and more complicated tale to tell) is of my father teaching me and my siblings Irish and Scottish songs, ditties, and poems for which he would summon us to perform for guests (Do You Ken John Peel; The Wee Cooper of Fife; Burn's Auld Lang Syne and To a Mouse). I recall these as being received with delight. Later, I took to learning songs and poems by heart for my own sake and would, on occasion, thinking to delight my mother - who was often very sad - sing or recite something i had learned. I recall vividly (in this instance, a primary memory) singing to my mother the entirety of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ( a seasonal memory, for sure). It is the first memory I have of our "game." She would listen, while doing some piece of housework or while putting on make-up (she always had to be doing something in order to listen). When done, my mother would say something like, "Chris, you have a very nice voice. If you keep practicing you could become a famous singer." The complement part of this comment seemed genuine enough and I always received it warmly. But, the complement was lost with the suggestion of fame and I was left both bewildered and paralyzed. It would also always be the last time I shared with my mother either a song or a poem or whatever it was I chose to dare. For a very long while it was not clear to me why her reaction always shut me down. It did not occur to me that I had been shut down. I didn't feel shut down or bitter or disappointed or resentful. It was only over time that I realized that the consequence of her reaction was to kill my motivation to share - it was as subtle form of deflation. Over the years of my adolescence and well into adulthood I would share an accomplishment (always something new) with my mother and her reaction was always the same, "You could become famous with that." I was well into my 40s when I finally began to wonder just what was it about "fame" that seemed such an enduring and powerful value to my mother. Asking my mother (or my father) about such things elicited nothing - their reticence about their pasts as well as their inner lives was on the order of a superpower - something they carried to their graves, i'm sad to say. This left me only with sherlocking what I could. And i have figured out a few things, if too late to act on them for the sake of the sorrows and disappointments that my parents lived with. For my own sake, I have spent decades disentangling from my own heart and mind this ruinous "fame game" (as I came to call it). That said, and apropos of Andrea Cohen's poem, I realized relatively recently, that this "game" was a powerful clue about my parents' mysterious pasts for which i have fruitfully applied Sherlock Holmes's very useful advice: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" And on that note of mystery, I hope that you have all had a most joyous season of revels.
how heartbreaking ... and to be reminded of the power of our words, regardless of intent... support to you in both your Sherlocking and your Brahma Vihara-ing.... and I wonder if you're familiar with the process known as Family Constellations? (kind of psycho-drama)... I've found it rather powerful to shifting the energy within me and often revelatory too.
while describing something painful, your words also made me smile: "their reticence about their pasts as well as their inner lives was on the order of a superpower". I am imagining a cartoon character with a big "D" (short for Donny, aka Denial) emblazoned on their chest. or would it be another word? I may be projecting, as I'm intimately familiar with the D thing!
wish you ease in the journey and in this week of transitions..
Thanks, Mona. I'm unfamiliar with the practice of Family Constellations though i understand it's based on the notion of generational trauma being borne down the generations. And that is certainly some of what i've learned over the years. Stories of heartbreak and loss that are very sad if also very common. Your cartoon image is spot on though, again, my parents' reticence makes it nigh impossible to discern the uniqueness of the kind of denial they lived with. So many stories (the heritage of many families) are lost in those silences. May you have a lovely new year as we carry on from solstice with another journey around the sun.
You too, Chris…. I’m sure quite different but one of the things I’ve heard many children of refugees from the 1947 partition say is that their parents never talked about it. like, never ever. there’s a book of stories on partition called The Other Side of Silence and I have always loved the title for all it suggests.
I wish you courage, comfort and clarity through this journey, even with all the clouds…. ❤️🩹
Dear Chris, there is so much in what you have written. Thank you for the term "the fame game". It happened, and still happens in my family but recognising the passive aggression, loss and sorrow in it is so powerful.
My mom just came through six months of chemo to treat lymphoma. In the early '90's, not yet 50 years old, she went through chemo for breast cancer, which was hell. She spent years anxiously afraid it might return. I asked her yesterday whether she feels that same anxiety this time. Her response surprised me. She said it's easier this time because she thinks perhaps it wasn't lymphoma at all, that maybe the doctors made a mistake. Perhaps it was something else. This despite diagnosis from her oncologist and confirmation from a lymphoma specialist at a major medical center and the scans that lit up like a Christmas tree. Mom's a very logical, science-supporting person. But this is what gets her through. So be it. I love her.
Thanks again for your thoughts, poem share and prompt, Pádraig- something I look forward to each Sunday, as well as the community comments and ruminations- such a gift. What moves me is the notion of having a continuing conversation with the dead… I do with my dad- hear his voice in my daily doings, think of the things he would have enjoyed seeing, doing, tasting…how we keep the departed with us in this way. Wishing all well as we turn to the light and longer days.
Oh what a delightful, and deep, little poem. “The Committee Weighs In” - I love this title, as the poem feels like an expression of that which has weightiness and that which is weightless… and seeing the insubstantiality of that which appears weighty (whoa, the Nobel prize! and yet, her mother’s “Again?” knocking it right off its pedestal; the weightiness of “dead” and yet “we play a game” seems somehow to supersede even the weight and seeming finality of death. And that’s where “we pretend” - I love this! - “that I’m somebody” - which could be in the I’m somebody special kind of way, or it could be also referring to the insubstantiality of “self” - that last line expressing the depth of Buddhist teachings on “no birth, no death.” Maybe the pretending carries the greatest wisdom? But mostly what moved me was her mom’s nonchalant response to her daughter’s announcement of winning the Nobel prize. And the conversation itself.
On my bday this year which marked 50 years since I transitioned out of my mom’s womb and it marked 100 days since my mom transitioned out of her earthly body - I committed to writing a letter to my mom every day. It’s been a profound practice, and support. “Whatever gets us through.” What my mom couldn’t do in her life (get her younger daughter to be consistent about many things!), she accomplished, mostly, through her death. The ongoing relationship… is everything. There is humor, sadness, regret, patience, connection, understanding, memory, imagination … and love. profound enduring love.
What is the role of our imagination?
The role of that which is invisible?
What are the stories we tell ourselves?
There are the material conditions of reality, undeniable. Yes. And then there is what we tell ourselves about it all. What we pay attention to. How we make meaning. This is the gift you repeatedly offer us, Pádraig, through the poetry you share, and your reflections, insights, questions, and invitations. Thank you!
I’m so moved to read what you wrote here, Mona. I’d been thinking of you — and your esteemed mother — when writing the newsletter.
ohh, thank you dear Pádraig! that means so much to me. ❤️🩹.
There are the material conditions of reality, undeniable. Yes. And then there is what we tell ourselves about it all. What we pay attention to. How we make meaning.
That is such truth Mona.
Anyone else experience this? Having moved around a lot in my life means old friends surface at random intervals -- sometimes decades pass before we reconnect. What we remember about each other is often astonishing; little things I barely recall are often top front for them and vice versa. Memories must be like little stones we select and keep polishing. The surprise I suppose is which ones we quietly keep in our pockets year after year.
the work of our lives! and, feels good to know we have some agency.
"What my mom couldn’t do in her life (get her younger daughter to be consistent about many things!), she accomplished, mostly, through her death." What a beautiful (encouraging, heartening) share. Thank you, Mona Chopra❤.
thank you so much, Jenny Noble Anderson. 💕
Mona, i don't know if i already shared my condolences with you when I noted your news a few months ago. I do so now, belatedly. Your daily letters to your mother is a very moving idea. And your relationship with your mother sounds beautiful. I had nothing like that with my mother - rather, much the opposite, i suppose. But, coincidentally, last month I started writing letters to my mother (and my father - both gone for several years now) as I seek to apply the brahmaviharas to my complicated relationship with them. I like the chinese translation of brahmavihara as "four infinite minds," which makes me feel like such letter-writing moves beyond the confines of our material/corporeal (i.e. this life) self to touch that or our beloved departed. Thank-you for your lovely reflections. They soothe my soul.
hello chris kindred spirit! thank you so much for your kind condolences. and what synchronicity that you too started to write letters to your mother (and father too)! I bow to your beautiful intention to apply the BVs to these most complicated often most difficult and deeply fraught relationships. I agree that such letter writing can indeed help us touch into or perhaps 'channel' the deepest parts of ourselves, our buddha nature, the buddha nature of our departed ones...something beyond, limitless, "infinite"... I think, imagine that alchemy is possible here... the energy can shift and that's how it continues to live in us, I think, so... the letters, the letters! I wonder if you have ever written letters from your mother and/or father back to you?
well, thank you, Chris, for reading, for your kind words and for sharing.
letters back from my departed parents? An intriguing idea that I will ponder. :-)
"How we make meaning." Yes! Learning how to do this for yourself seems like an essential skill for true happiness.
🙏🏾
Sensational thoughts.
🙏🏾 Pádraig's newsletter is such a fertile soil for reflection!
What moves you in it? And where does it move you to?
It brought me to tears, not the good cry I need, but at least a few tears to release some steam so that the pan doesn’t overflow on the stove.
I went and read the essay by Andrea Cohen and was further moved by the humor in the midst of life and grief and pain. It is like finding a friend you didn’t know you had, a fellow traveler who looks at life the way you do, who can talk of the serious stuff but why not laugh a little on the way to tears?
When my husband was dying, in fact the morning of the day he died, or maybe it's the day before? He died around 2 am so I guess this story would be the day before?
Anyway, he came out of the bathroom after showering. He stopped in the hallway and sort of bemoaned how much weight he had lost, how skinny he was. He said “I look like a praying mantis.” With his long body, arms, and legs and big ole head, he did. He did look like a praying mantis.
I love praying mantis. I make window box flower arrangements on our porch each year. And when I find one taking up residence in them, I am thrilled and overjoyed.
So when he said “I look like a praying mantis.”, I did not hesitate but said to him that you know how much I love praying mantis, do this and imitated the motion they make with their long arms. He did it. We both laughed and I helped him get back to the couch.
It is such a sweet memory to me. His last day on earth, our last little laugh together.
What a story, Elaine. The love between the two of you. The love for the window boxes and insects. The joke for his last day alive. Thank you.
this story is beyond wonder......thank you so much for sharing it. I will never look at a praying mantis again without thinking of your poignant experience of lovingkindness and laughter at that moment in time.
Elaine, such a lovely treasure of a moment to keep in your heart always. I am glad you were gifted with that exchange of humor and tenderness. Thank you for sharing with us. May it fortify you with recurring moments of joy when you need it.
oh my. Elaine. what a tender story and such a testament to love! on so many levels. thank you for sharing. and "who can talk of the serious stuff but why not laugh a little on the way to tears?" -- oh yes! a secret fantasy that revealed itself to me only after I started working as an acupuncturist, was that evidently I actually want to be a comedian. laughter! humor. it saves us). thank you again for sharing this beautiful-painful story.
Thanks, Mona
This lovely poem this morning invites me to imagine a game of noticing all the Nobel prize winners I encounter in a day. Nobel prize for kindness, patience, listening, honesty and vulnerability.
Sweet idea, Mary. You haven't noticed that in doing that, you are winning your own, more valuable Nobel prize for "presence." You're going to need a whole lot of that, while you are noticing those wonderful qualities of others. Whatever will you wear to the awards ceremony ;-) ? XO
So many things to like in this tiny poem. For me it’s what it says about the need for parental affirmation.
We know the speaker hasn’t actually won the Nobel Prize (it’s a game) but she imagines her mother not being surprised when she says she has. There’s no - don’t be ridiculous, are you joking or what? - in the mother’s response. This mother believes her child to be exceptional, capable of winning the prize multiple times.
My lovely Mum is long dead. When she was alive I worried for her approval, kept hidden things I thought she wouldn’t like. Now she isn’t here I’d be so glad to have her affirm the choices I’ve since made - becoming a poet, a second marriage, a move south. To conjure her up in a poem and have her applaud my current life would of course be a dream. My actual Mum would have more to say!
Perhaps, in any case, there are some things we can’t achieve while our mothers live? Perhaps that’s the great gift of poetry - that we can resurrect our lives, our people, our places and write a new script?
New script, yes! Cuts both ways. Some parents inflict an impossible one on their children, however well intended. Once they pass there can be a great freedom in rejecting it wholesale, making space for one which is custom fitted.
That last paragraph...but, really, this whole thing, Estelle. The parental affirmation. That stirs up things inside me that I suppose I hadn't considered. Or allowed would be a better word. Brings to mind a story from last summer.
This last paragraph. Poetry (writing) IS a great gift. I believe you are right (write?), that we can right a new script. Because, in a way, that is what poetry (ad writing) does for us, it rights something within us. Thanks for sharing!! XO
"… write a new script."
I like that!
"Perhaps, in any case, there are some things we can’t achieve while our mothers live?" I think yes. At least I like to tell myself that, as I wonder why there are things I was simply not able to do while my Mom was still living here, in her body. I do think something shifts when the veil is crossed - for those on both sides. And, thank you for the hope! "Perhaps that’s the great gift of poetry - that we can resurrect our lives, our people, our places and write a new script?"
This early winter morning, this blog post is getting me through a difficult night of grief, loss, abandonment and anger. The humor and humanity of the poem is just the salve I needed, not quite salvation, but delicious nonetheless. Thank you, Padraig.
Not quite salvation; not quite not. Sorry for the difficult morning Jeffrey.
The poem’s title struck me this reading. “The Committee Weighs In” — of course, the Nobel Committee is the reference, but the title makes me think of how much stock we put into our parents’ (or parent’s) assessment of us.
I’m almost 52, and I believe my mother has grown to respect me, even to like me, but I haven’t always felt that way. I’ve always known she loved me, but I always knew I disappointed her in not being more feminine or more demure or more conventional. (My late father called me the “best son [he] ever had” — he has four sons and another daughter besides me — a comment I found insulting until I recognized that his rubric left me no other choice, so I should just take the compliment.)
Early harsh and near constant criticism — or confusing praise — can make a person grow up feeling as though a committee is constantly judging her every move (always harshly and near constant), no matter how far away she moves from home.
As I’ve come to trust that my own assessment of myself is the one that matters most, I am sometimes bemused by my mother’s struggle to deal with her own confusing feelings — I still don’t measure up to her standards, but she likes me, despite herself. And I am bemused by my own affection for this woman that my younger self would say deserves little reciprocation. I cannot help but give it now. She’s a harmless sweet little old lady — not a committee chair.
And I see that humor in this poem too, as they play their game.
Thank you for this. Poetry helps me understand the world, and myself.
Very wise, Maeve, that you have come to realize 1) that your own thoughts about you matter most because that's really all we can have control over and 2) that what others think of us is seen through a lens of their own feelings and emotions, including our moms. Thank you for sharing this! XO
"Poetry helps me understand the world, and myself."
Absolutely love this!
Thank you.
Wow. What is glaringly obvious to me as I read this little poem is how badly I need to adjust the lens I look through. "I pretend I'm somebody, she pretends she isn't dead" strike me as profoundly sad. HOW IS IT THAT I SEE MELANCHOLY IN EVERYTHING??? I love, love, love Padraigh, that you read this poem through a lens of humor and play. As I close out this dismal year (see, I did it RIGHT THERE), I would like badly to scrub these lenses clean, stand at my own helm, and be on the lookout for JOY. For ease. For play. For laughter and connection, even with some folks who are no longer in my life. Some dead. Some just gone. Not everything has to be deadly earnest. Come on, Lyn. You've got this. Thanks, Padraigh.
My heart dropped at the end, too. I think the sadness is also part of the poem, along with the other aspects.
Me as well! If read in a certain mood it can feel a bit like being haunted, like no matter your accomplishments in life they don't get you over the hurdles of those judgemental eyebrows!
Thank you Lyn, for the nudge towards reengaging with joy and lightness, giving them the first helpings of our attention.
Ross Gay's Book of Delights shifted what I look for in the world, adjusted my lens ever so slightly.
I felt such a thud - shock and sadness - reading the last sentence too, Lyn! Along with playfulness and humor and depth... well, bows to you for your intention to be on the lookout for joy. in all it's interesting masks!
My friend who sounds like you said she has had her lenses wiped clean with the book “Joy is My Justice.”
I love this poem. My mother played pretend all of her life, including telling the world that she was Peter Pan and would never grow up. Thus her death was hardly possible for me to believe. This poem takes me back to her time of pretend and happiness in the memory of it. Thank you.
It describes a relationship that exists, even though the two characters ‘exist’ on different planes (if one ascribes to that belief), with such an efficiency of words that I felt breathless. I was brought into instant focus, but rather than being left with melancholy or sadness, I felt comfort and joy. Well, it is the season for that, isn’t it? My mother is also dead. It made me think about the use of the word dead. Many would substitute “dead” with “passed” or some other contrivance to look at that state through frosted glass or under ripples of water, anything to avoid the clear fact of death. Here I felt the author was not only embracing death but telling us it was never going to end their relationship. It was lovely and sharp and soft and funny - all at once.
Thank you. I felt sad and wistful—didn’t have that kind of relationship with my mother who died 28 years ago, but also I grinned—for being able to experience a bit of their relationship and for the humor.
I did not have that kind of relationship with my mother either... but I did with my beloved Nana (who is 31 years gone from this plane). I have had so many conversations with her since she left... so many. But this poem makes me think that perhaps all those poems I have read out loud have been shared on more than one level. The best reason to read poetry out loud, if ever there was one!
Speaking your truth, your poems, whatever, out loud is so, so powerful, Kat! Good for you for sharing them. XO
The gentle tone, the wink and the nod, the soft fall off the cliff at the end. I would be right along side her beautiful and angry mother and storm into Mr. Thomas' office. How dare he?
And if you're lucky, you too miss your angry and beautiful mother who wrapped you in love and fury and left you with a loss that can never be fully grieved.
What moves you in it?
And where does it move you to?
Here we go...
me and My Mom
I think we pretended a little too much,
probably didn’t play very much.
Growing up was serious business.
Being proper was what was important.
I remember her saying,
“I love you, but I’m not sure I like you very much.”
I remember me thinking,
“I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be like you, very much.”
I sat with my mom when she was dying.
It was the proper thing to do.
I’m pretty sure I said, “I love you.”
and later, “ I wish we liked each other sooner.”
"I think we pretended a little too much" - thank you for sharing this moving poem, Nancy.
Nancy, your mom sounds like my mammy!
She once said when she was quite ill, " You don't like me Maighread" I was horrified that I had made this so clear!
As we both got older and my father died, we did discover some things in common. We both were interested in spirituality and children. I was a teacher in a primary school and mammy worked in a pre- school playgroup. We both could recognise the wonderful intelligence of children. Mammy died in 1999. I don't know if she would like me now and the decisions and choices I've made in my life. Perhaps I will take the advice of Mona and write and tell her of what I've been up to!
Oh this poem! It brings up so much with so few words.
My mother in law Ruthie died in 2018 and her ashes are in our dining room. Early on in the pandemic, she and I would have cocktail hour where I would bring her ashes out to the backyard.
She was a force of a woman with a razor sharp wit. One year, she was at our house for a holiday dinner and wanted to take a walk. I asked if she wanted me to come along since she didn't live in the area and she replied without a second's hesitation, "Why? Do you think there are gangs of youth trolling the streets for my virginity?"
Priceless.
A dear friend gave my husband a bell to ring when thinking of Ruthie (and another for me after my dad died). There is nothing sweeter than hearing that jingling from rooms away, knowing the two of them are conspiring together.
Oh my word, Johanna, I love that you and your mother in law would have cocktail hour together. How perfect! XO
wow! what a beautiful practice. thank you for sharing.
Andrea Cohen's poem is lovely and warms my heart with its combination of whimsy and bittersweetness. Alas, in response to your question, it moves me to sorrow. Or, rather, remembrance of sorrow - one that has taken me decades to understand and for which I have found a measure of equanimity. My mother and I also had a "little game" we would play - though not the fun kind. One of my earliest memories (really a memory of a memory but that's a longer and more complicated tale to tell) is of my father teaching me and my siblings Irish and Scottish songs, ditties, and poems for which he would summon us to perform for guests (Do You Ken John Peel; The Wee Cooper of Fife; Burn's Auld Lang Syne and To a Mouse). I recall these as being received with delight. Later, I took to learning songs and poems by heart for my own sake and would, on occasion, thinking to delight my mother - who was often very sad - sing or recite something i had learned. I recall vividly (in this instance, a primary memory) singing to my mother the entirety of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ( a seasonal memory, for sure). It is the first memory I have of our "game." She would listen, while doing some piece of housework or while putting on make-up (she always had to be doing something in order to listen). When done, my mother would say something like, "Chris, you have a very nice voice. If you keep practicing you could become a famous singer." The complement part of this comment seemed genuine enough and I always received it warmly. But, the complement was lost with the suggestion of fame and I was left both bewildered and paralyzed. It would also always be the last time I shared with my mother either a song or a poem or whatever it was I chose to dare. For a very long while it was not clear to me why her reaction always shut me down. It did not occur to me that I had been shut down. I didn't feel shut down or bitter or disappointed or resentful. It was only over time that I realized that the consequence of her reaction was to kill my motivation to share - it was as subtle form of deflation. Over the years of my adolescence and well into adulthood I would share an accomplishment (always something new) with my mother and her reaction was always the same, "You could become famous with that." I was well into my 40s when I finally began to wonder just what was it about "fame" that seemed such an enduring and powerful value to my mother. Asking my mother (or my father) about such things elicited nothing - their reticence about their pasts as well as their inner lives was on the order of a superpower - something they carried to their graves, i'm sad to say. This left me only with sherlocking what I could. And i have figured out a few things, if too late to act on them for the sake of the sorrows and disappointments that my parents lived with. For my own sake, I have spent decades disentangling from my own heart and mind this ruinous "fame game" (as I came to call it). That said, and apropos of Andrea Cohen's poem, I realized relatively recently, that this "game" was a powerful clue about my parents' mysterious pasts for which i have fruitfully applied Sherlock Holmes's very useful advice: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" And on that note of mystery, I hope that you have all had a most joyous season of revels.
how heartbreaking ... and to be reminded of the power of our words, regardless of intent... support to you in both your Sherlocking and your Brahma Vihara-ing.... and I wonder if you're familiar with the process known as Family Constellations? (kind of psycho-drama)... I've found it rather powerful to shifting the energy within me and often revelatory too.
while describing something painful, your words also made me smile: "their reticence about their pasts as well as their inner lives was on the order of a superpower". I am imagining a cartoon character with a big "D" (short for Donny, aka Denial) emblazoned on their chest. or would it be another word? I may be projecting, as I'm intimately familiar with the D thing!
wish you ease in the journey and in this week of transitions..
Thanks, Mona. I'm unfamiliar with the practice of Family Constellations though i understand it's based on the notion of generational trauma being borne down the generations. And that is certainly some of what i've learned over the years. Stories of heartbreak and loss that are very sad if also very common. Your cartoon image is spot on though, again, my parents' reticence makes it nigh impossible to discern the uniqueness of the kind of denial they lived with. So many stories (the heritage of many families) are lost in those silences. May you have a lovely new year as we carry on from solstice with another journey around the sun.
You too, Chris…. I’m sure quite different but one of the things I’ve heard many children of refugees from the 1947 partition say is that their parents never talked about it. like, never ever. there’s a book of stories on partition called The Other Side of Silence and I have always loved the title for all it suggests.
I wish you courage, comfort and clarity through this journey, even with all the clouds…. ❤️🩹
Dear Chris, there is so much in what you have written. Thank you for the term "the fame game". It happened, and still happens in my family but recognising the passive aggression, loss and sorrow in it is so powerful.
My mom just came through six months of chemo to treat lymphoma. In the early '90's, not yet 50 years old, she went through chemo for breast cancer, which was hell. She spent years anxiously afraid it might return. I asked her yesterday whether she feels that same anxiety this time. Her response surprised me. She said it's easier this time because she thinks perhaps it wasn't lymphoma at all, that maybe the doctors made a mistake. Perhaps it was something else. This despite diagnosis from her oncologist and confirmation from a lymphoma specialist at a major medical center and the scans that lit up like a Christmas tree. Mom's a very logical, science-supporting person. But this is what gets her through. So be it. I love her.
Thanks again for your thoughts, poem share and prompt, Pádraig- something I look forward to each Sunday, as well as the community comments and ruminations- such a gift. What moves me is the notion of having a continuing conversation with the dead… I do with my dad- hear his voice in my daily doings, think of the things he would have enjoyed seeing, doing, tasting…how we keep the departed with us in this way. Wishing all well as we turn to the light and longer days.