My Mother, Myself

Yesterday, Harmattan Rain author Ayesha Harruna Attah and I did a joint reading at Bluestockings Books as both our novels explore the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship. Against a backdrop of Bluestockings' intellectual candy store of tomes we each read excerpts that revealed our characters' complicated relationships with their moms, and in the process hinted at our own relationships with our mothers.

My mother and I are incredibly close and my relationship with her is much different from the one Lila has with her mother, but one thing that Felicia and my mom do share is a desire to define themselves as more than a mother. My mother made many sacrifices for us (I think it just comes with the mom job description), but I also saw her being a woman and wife. When we were kids, she and my dad would double date with my friends' parents. I loved watching her get spiffed up for these outings in her wide-brimmed hats, A-line mini dresses or puff-shouldered blouses tucked into cigarette pants, and stilettos. She was THE woman to me.

And as I got older I watched her really work to figure out how to balance her ambition to complete her degree while working like mad to help pay my insane college tuition and her own all while trying to make sure we ate breakfast and dinners as a family. Getting to see that up close, prepared me for the realities of womanhood and I feel it has given me a focused picture of what to expect when I eventually add the responsibilities of wife and mother to my plate.

Additionally, my mother made sure to pursue her passions. She made time to do the things she loved and as I get older and struggle to manage my time better, I don't know how she did it. I think she got it from her own mother and the circle of women that mothered her to womanhood.

Like the protagonist of Powder Necklace, my mother and I had several mothers. Our biological mothers as well as aunties, women who married into the family, older cousins, and family friends who shared their slice of woman cake with us, and in the process helped make us the women we are. None of these women were perfect. In many instances they didn't get the work-family balance right and they didn't always make the right decisions for their children or their families. But they were real women who loved and lived and continue to do so with passion and jokes and (now that I'm older) candid advice I can use as I confront the hard choices of womanhood.

One day, Lila will grow to appreciate her mother's choices (maybe not understand, but appreciate),; and she will love Auntie Irene, Auntie Flora, step-mother Joo-Li, Miss Nikki, and the other women in her life in ways she can't even understand right now. She will grow to reflect her Auntie Irene's pragmatism, her Auntie Flora's fabulousness, her step-mother's sweet spirit, Miss Nikki's "it takes a village" approach, and she will find herself relating to her mother's desire to find happiness for herself -- just as I have grown to become the woman my mother and the women in my life inspired me to be. Happy Mother's day, Mommy!

(There's more mom-gushing here.)