Definition: title of an ABBA song and a musical featuring ABBA music in which my nephew just played Bill Austin (one of the dads). Direct translation from Italian: “my mother.” Meaning: expression of surprise, fear, pain, joy, exasperation, etc. Now Italians would insist that they aren’t actually thinking about their mother when they use the phrase, but still… huh. Actually, I think the bigger wonder isn’t that all of those emotions are expressed by saying “my mother,” but the seeming disconnect that the phrase quite appropriately arose out of the complex state of motherhood. So I actually started this blog on Mother’s Day. I wasn’t sure when I started it if I would actually finish it much less share it. I got about half way through on Sunday and walked away from it. It’s now Tuesday and I’m back to try again. In large part I’m back because the whole point of this blog is to share moments exactly like this one, hard as it may be. So let’s see if I can push this out.
But before I get to all of that, Shannon and I are (were as I wrote this part on Sunday) presently in an airport coming home from watching our nephew Jackson play his part in his high school’s production of Mamma Mia! He, and the entire production, were phenomenal. Seriously. Jackson has been in theater most of his life. He loves, loves, loves it. I feel like these days it isn’t often enough that we get to see somebody so thoroughly passionate about what they do. Spend five seconds with Jackson and there is no mistaking how much he loves theater. All of it. For this production, he designed the set, choreographed the entire thing with a couple of his friends, and of course played one of the leading roles. Yes, I am boasting a bit here, but more than that what I want to say is that I respect Jackson deeply for how incredibly committed he is to what he loves. It shows in everything he tirelessly does with what appears to be an unlimited energy for it. It feeds his soul, and it shows. Yesterday morning we just sat with him for an hour over coffee listening to all of his hopes, dreams, excitement, and dogged determination for his future, which he will no doubt fight tooth and nail for. It was all I could do to hold it in while he spoke, but after he got up to leave the tears came streaming down. There. I said it. Yes, I cry when nobody is looking. Except in this case Shannon, who knows this about me.
Mamma Mia, it’s Mother’s Day! (Again written on Sunday.) I mean that in its full expression, because if we are being honest… motherhood embodies the full complexity of life. It’s easy enough, a no-brainer, to pause to honor our mothers as our life givers and nurturers. But let’s be real about it, shall we? Motherhood is hard. Anyone who has ever been a mother or had a mother knows this, although the former know more than the latter. Let’s take me and mine for instance. Incidentally, that is a photo of my mom above. Warning: what I am about to share is authentic and real. To my family, I know this is going to make you uncomfortable and would have you know that you are safe. We are all profoundly safe.
My mother is an enigma. She floats beneath the surface. She taught me to float there with her. My mom views the world through x-ray vision that incises right through you. Not that she will tell you what she sees… unless, of course, you are in her training circle or she has decided that it is time that you get a little training whether you are in her circle or not. She taught me to view the world in this way, always looking for the unseen, for the story underneath. She has shaped how I do life. I am who I am because of it. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Yet now midway through my life, I have learned that living underground is a protective mechanism that no longer serves my self-actualization. I have learned that this protective mechanism has origins in family wounds passed from generation to generation.
My mother’s mother was, well, difficult. In this day and age my grandmother Irene would probably be diagnosed as bipolar. But she didn’t grow up in anything remotely like this day and age, and neither did my mother. This is, incidentally, my grandmother who thankfully and annoyingly repeated my birth story to me ad nauseam when I was a child. She also used to cover her face from the nose down and say to me, “you have my eyes.” My eyes are slightly slanty in a remotely Swedish sort of way, Sweden being half her heritage. My mom’s dad, Sox, was- as I have gathered from my mom- a deeply empathetic and generous man. I only ever knew him as a shadowy figure asleep on the couch. He died when I was very young. It is clear to me that my mom worshipped him. He was also an alcoholic.
Already if you have done any amount of personal work you can begin to put two and two together. Everything that I told you above about my mom originates in the childhood conditions in which she was raised. For my mom, the world and in particular people were not to be trusted. Better to stay low and protect yourself. Add to that the fact that she is of the Silent Generation in which kids were to be seen and not heard, growing up in the shadows of the Great Depression, only to arrive into an adulthood in which women were fighting for their self-actualization to not be tied to a state of motherhood. Having watched her own parents, it is no surprise that she came to the conclusion that the only safe route for me was to not become dependent on anyone else for my self-actualization. She would say these days that I took that lesson a little too far. What can I say? I am a hopeless overachiever! I became fiercely independent at a very young age. I learned not to rely on anyone for anything.
As you hopefully can tell from this blog, I know better now. That doesn’t mean that I have healed it. I simply know better. Specifically I think it is important for all of us to realize that family trauma is passed along from generation to generation, untouched and festering, until somebody- anybody!– decides to face it and heal it. I am in the midst of that work now. The cool thing is that when we do heal it, we heal it for everyone past, present and future. Every single one of us is that powerful. Every single one of us is called to this work. It is, in my mind, the most important work that we have to do in life. This is because it is exactly what we signed up for when we chose our parents. Yes, I said chose. I believe that we choose our parents and they agree to take us on. Who we choose is done in full consciousness, in full vision, of who they are, what their challenges have been, and what lessons they will set up for us. We choose them because they are the perfect people to set the context for what we came to learn, to do, to heal. Yes, I am admitting it. I chose my crazy parents and quirky family. And they have delivered- perfectly. I have a ton of work to do to heal what I came to heal, but my path has been perfectly set. I have both of my parents to thank for that. Mom, what I would have you know is that my taking your lessons to the extreme was part of the process. It’s all good. Wholeness is near. Oh, and… I love you.