Asha, I read this yesterday and it pushed so deeply into me I couldn't even form words.
My mind weaves in and out and around my daughter most days in such similar ways. I loved the description of your own daughter being a "fairy-like imp" when they were younger. Evagene is not quite 2.5 years old now, and I think you just described her perfectly — this soft, floating, fairy dust aura seems to follow wherever she goes, even while tomato sauce is spread on the corners of her cheeks after eating "tat-za."
Your words also reminded me of a "flash of lightning" moments I had when we lived back in Colorado. I was in the thick of it, first-time-mom wise, and on weekends we'd go on mountain drives just to have a moment where Ev could be contained in one stationary spot.
One time, as we descended up a steep incline, a soft piano began slowly tinkering, then it increased rapidly, repeating itself on the radio. And right when we reached the top of the road, surrounded by hilltops and mountain majesty in every direction, I felt a dagger push through my heart. The voice on the radio, echoing through a canyon, said, "I was all alone with the love of my life..."
I collapsed quietly in my chair at the message that was just tattooed inside me. For all my searching and wandering and wrestling with belonging, she is the love of my life. Even knowing how things with mothers and daughters can go sideways, she has pierced me and woven inside me so completely. I will never know another love like this, I thought, and I felt my whole life packaged up and set free in that moment.
Anyways, all this to say, I was aching alongside you and nodding and waiting for the words to surface to share. What you wrote yesterday is exquisite.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Amanda. My two are definitely the greatest loves of my life. And I'm blessed with deep friendships spanning decades, so they definitely came in with competition for that spot. But it was no contest, really. My love for them is just... different. Unparalleled. Miraculous. And it has made me better at loving those other people, too.
I'm not one of those to romanticize motherhood, which is often a slog. I don't think that no woman can be "complete" without being a mother. But for me becoming a mother has tested and expanded my heart in ways I wouldn't have imagined myself capable of. Like no other love had done before or since. It is the best, hardest thing that's ever happened to me.
Just when a generation thinks they have figured it out and are flying into a bit of light, the world changes around us and the things we learned don't always apply to our children. Kids don't come with blueprints. the fact you hold such love for yours is tremendous support as they go forth <3 Our parents world was changing from under them as well..... I am so proud of you as you walk in your integrity, express your vulnerability, try to remain open and trust.......
Thank you for this piece. And even more, thank you for being the kind of mother and human being you are. For feeling and knowing your own emotions, including fear and pain, and letting them fuel your own self-knowledge while supporting your young birds in their respective flights. I am so struck by the beauty and strength in your words, and how much your own approach to your children’s growth is so different to how I was mothered as I grew. When I went to college, and came home at the end of the semester exultant with straight A’s (I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do something like that!), my mother was cold to me and uninterested in any conversation having to do with school. It was so marked that I inwardly resolved to never visit home again because I couldn’t face the feeling of outright rejection. After the visit, I asked my mom about what happened, and she said “I realized that you didn’t need me any more and so I dealt with that by behaving badly toward you.” At nearly every other junction of my life that involved the next stage of growth (moving away to another city, etc.), my mom would either withdraw, become depressed, or needy. This always filled me with so much hurt and rage - I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t just be proud of me, happy for me, encouraging of me, or even just curious about what I wanted to do and why. It strained our tether to breaking point many times. It took me a long time to realize that in many ways, she really didn’t know who she was outside of being a mother, and didn’t have the ability to be with her emotions without having them overwhelm her to the point of being unable to step outside of them long enough to actually connect with me. Thank you for shining a light on your own experience so I can hold more compassion for my mom. Even though she died many years ago now, I still work on having and offering her compassion, and this piece helps.
I'll also say that I am very much aided in any success that we can claim as a family by my very loving and self-aware children. I asked each of them if I could read this piece to them, the reading of which then left each of us a snotty, blubbering mess.
I am so damn lucky they are willing to go there with me, that they understand and appreciate the one that I am.
Aw, Judy. What a complicated piece of work she was! I feel like mothering my kids, particularly now as they're slowly but surely moving away and into their own realities, is giving me so much compassion for my mom. Daily, I feel like I witness my own emotional reactivity come up so strongly and find myself imagining my mom in the same position. This stage is much harder in many respects than their early childhood's were, for me anyway. The push and pull of it all. The having to let go. I had a much clearer sense of what I was doing when they were little. I am totally flying in the dark these days. And so was my mom, I'm realizing, but with no history of therapy or emotional self-reflection, no idea about being trauma-informed. I don't envy her that at all.
This speaks deeply to me, Asha. All of it--the aftermath of divorce, the way our children tether us to the world, dreams with their younger selves. In 2016, my daughter left for college on the opposite coast, and I knew that same girl would never be coming back. It was so hard. But we've stayed tethered. She met and fell in love with and married a young man from Sweden. She's been living with me the past two years (an amazing gift of bonus time), but her visa finally came through and in August she will be moving across a continent and ocean to start her life as an immigrant in a country that speaks a language I don't. Talk about a stretched tether. And fears. And needing to let go. Luckily, I've been learning it all in stages. I'm thankful I didn't have to do such a long stretch all at once. Wishing you all the best as your muscles adapt to the next stages.
Oh, Rita! What a thing, to have your child living on another continent. I admire your openness to it. Both of mine have talked about wanting to live overseas at various points. I've mostly tried to stay upbeat and respond, Great! I'll visit you all the time! But inside I quail at the prospect.
All hail stages. How else would we ever survive all of this?
I don't know! We would, though. As for the openness, it doesn't feel like a choice. It's how the tether stretches instead of snaps. What I know is that as much as she wants what she's choosing, it will also be hard and is scary and contains loss. She needs all the support I can give her. So I do. I'm sure you will, too. And as my mother tells me, we never know how things will go or what will happen. They might choose to come back. 💚
I am. The Quaker community is relatively small. I don’t know Parker Palmer personally, but my parents knew him. The saying, though, preceded him. It was carved into a lintel above the door of a classroom building at my Quaker high school and is based in a saying by George Fox, the founder.
Exquisite ~ I’m going to hold this essay close to my heart for quite sometime…thank you Asha.
Asha, I read this yesterday and it pushed so deeply into me I couldn't even form words.
My mind weaves in and out and around my daughter most days in such similar ways. I loved the description of your own daughter being a "fairy-like imp" when they were younger. Evagene is not quite 2.5 years old now, and I think you just described her perfectly — this soft, floating, fairy dust aura seems to follow wherever she goes, even while tomato sauce is spread on the corners of her cheeks after eating "tat-za."
Your words also reminded me of a "flash of lightning" moments I had when we lived back in Colorado. I was in the thick of it, first-time-mom wise, and on weekends we'd go on mountain drives just to have a moment where Ev could be contained in one stationary spot.
One time, as we descended up a steep incline, a soft piano began slowly tinkering, then it increased rapidly, repeating itself on the radio. And right when we reached the top of the road, surrounded by hilltops and mountain majesty in every direction, I felt a dagger push through my heart. The voice on the radio, echoing through a canyon, said, "I was all alone with the love of my life..."
I collapsed quietly in my chair at the message that was just tattooed inside me. For all my searching and wandering and wrestling with belonging, she is the love of my life. Even knowing how things with mothers and daughters can go sideways, she has pierced me and woven inside me so completely. I will never know another love like this, I thought, and I felt my whole life packaged up and set free in that moment.
Anyways, all this to say, I was aching alongside you and nodding and waiting for the words to surface to share. What you wrote yesterday is exquisite.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Amanda. My two are definitely the greatest loves of my life. And I'm blessed with deep friendships spanning decades, so they definitely came in with competition for that spot. But it was no contest, really. My love for them is just... different. Unparalleled. Miraculous. And it has made me better at loving those other people, too.
I'm not one of those to romanticize motherhood, which is often a slog. I don't think that no woman can be "complete" without being a mother. But for me becoming a mother has tested and expanded my heart in ways I wouldn't have imagined myself capable of. Like no other love had done before or since. It is the best, hardest thing that's ever happened to me.
Just when a generation thinks they have figured it out and are flying into a bit of light, the world changes around us and the things we learned don't always apply to our children. Kids don't come with blueprints. the fact you hold such love for yours is tremendous support as they go forth <3 Our parents world was changing from under them as well..... I am so proud of you as you walk in your integrity, express your vulnerability, try to remain open and trust.......
Your honesty and vulnerability is a gift you offer to us. Thank you.
much love.
Thank you, Jan. <3
Thank you for this piece. And even more, thank you for being the kind of mother and human being you are. For feeling and knowing your own emotions, including fear and pain, and letting them fuel your own self-knowledge while supporting your young birds in their respective flights. I am so struck by the beauty and strength in your words, and how much your own approach to your children’s growth is so different to how I was mothered as I grew. When I went to college, and came home at the end of the semester exultant with straight A’s (I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do something like that!), my mother was cold to me and uninterested in any conversation having to do with school. It was so marked that I inwardly resolved to never visit home again because I couldn’t face the feeling of outright rejection. After the visit, I asked my mom about what happened, and she said “I realized that you didn’t need me any more and so I dealt with that by behaving badly toward you.” At nearly every other junction of my life that involved the next stage of growth (moving away to another city, etc.), my mom would either withdraw, become depressed, or needy. This always filled me with so much hurt and rage - I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t just be proud of me, happy for me, encouraging of me, or even just curious about what I wanted to do and why. It strained our tether to breaking point many times. It took me a long time to realize that in many ways, she really didn’t know who she was outside of being a mother, and didn’t have the ability to be with her emotions without having them overwhelm her to the point of being unable to step outside of them long enough to actually connect with me. Thank you for shining a light on your own experience so I can hold more compassion for my mom. Even though she died many years ago now, I still work on having and offering her compassion, and this piece helps.
I'll also say that I am very much aided in any success that we can claim as a family by my very loving and self-aware children. I asked each of them if I could read this piece to them, the reading of which then left each of us a snotty, blubbering mess.
I am so damn lucky they are willing to go there with me, that they understand and appreciate the one that I am.
Aw, Judy. What a complicated piece of work she was! I feel like mothering my kids, particularly now as they're slowly but surely moving away and into their own realities, is giving me so much compassion for my mom. Daily, I feel like I witness my own emotional reactivity come up so strongly and find myself imagining my mom in the same position. This stage is much harder in many respects than their early childhood's were, for me anyway. The push and pull of it all. The having to let go. I had a much clearer sense of what I was doing when they were little. I am totally flying in the dark these days. And so was my mom, I'm realizing, but with no history of therapy or emotional self-reflection, no idea about being trauma-informed. I don't envy her that at all.
This speaks deeply to me, Asha. All of it--the aftermath of divorce, the way our children tether us to the world, dreams with their younger selves. In 2016, my daughter left for college on the opposite coast, and I knew that same girl would never be coming back. It was so hard. But we've stayed tethered. She met and fell in love with and married a young man from Sweden. She's been living with me the past two years (an amazing gift of bonus time), but her visa finally came through and in August she will be moving across a continent and ocean to start her life as an immigrant in a country that speaks a language I don't. Talk about a stretched tether. And fears. And needing to let go. Luckily, I've been learning it all in stages. I'm thankful I didn't have to do such a long stretch all at once. Wishing you all the best as your muscles adapt to the next stages.
Oh, Rita! What a thing, to have your child living on another continent. I admire your openness to it. Both of mine have talked about wanting to live overseas at various points. I've mostly tried to stay upbeat and respond, Great! I'll visit you all the time! But inside I quail at the prospect.
All hail stages. How else would we ever survive all of this?
I don't know! We would, though. As for the openness, it doesn't feel like a choice. It's how the tether stretches instead of snaps. What I know is that as much as she wants what she's choosing, it will also be hard and is scary and contains loss. She needs all the support I can give her. So I do. I'm sure you will, too. And as my mother tells me, we never know how things will go or what will happen. They might choose to come back. 💚
It’s an amazing book … as are most things he’s written. He’s also an amazing speaker.
Are you familiar with the book titled Let Your Life Speak?
I am. The Quaker community is relatively small. I don’t know Parker Palmer personally, but my parents knew him. The saying, though, preceded him. It was carved into a lintel above the door of a classroom building at my Quaker high school and is based in a saying by George Fox, the founder.