To See My Mother

Nero, also known as Little Black Cat, or Trouble, or Miss Query, or Shred-it, will be holding the fort and keeping my books warm. As the most petite of our four cats, she is, of course, Alpha Cat. She likes to hang out on my shoulder while I'm doing dishes (with claws like fishhooks) and sneak into boxes to shred papers.

I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks, visiting my mother and the country of my heart. The country will soothe me, I hope (if not too many vacation-home McMansions have been built in the last year), to counteract the unfortunate fact that my mother will drive me wild.

Mothers ... when someone said that there are only seven plots in the world, I think they forgot to mention that mothers are an entire genre unto their own. My own mother is currently eccentric, brilliant, sometimes a little silly, a hypochondriac, a beautiful writer, a visionary (in that she can "see" the world with the clarity of a Buddha), a guitar and piano player, an artist. She calls herself the Mad Duchess and is working on a musical about the evil benzene ring of oil. All this is an improvement over what she was for most of my life, especially when I was little and always scared of her.

A woman of genius, all her friends knew, and still do. A woman of violence and temper and never-quenched needs for love and affirmation (and financial support), few ever discovered. Those who did, scat. Except for my father, who had his own weak personality and a thwarted view that he had caused her madness; and of course except her children, who had no choice.

My mother was also the one who told me as I was leaving for college, "I hope I've taught you that science and practical disciplines aren't the only areas worth studying." Art matters. Her concern just baffled me, because art -- whether writing, painting, crafts, or reading -- was always dominant in our household. Indeed, despite an innate love for science and mathematics (inherited from my father's side), I went to university seriously crippled in my ability to study them. Everything in my life had always been abstract. What mattered was art. What defined my day-to-day life was my mother's constant redefining of reality to suit what she needed at the moment.

As a little girl, I was always frightened of my mother. Later, I was always angry at her. Now, her frozen inability to take any responsibility for her life frustrates me to no end, especially as it requires hefty financial support from those who have none to spare, and takes an emotional and mental toll on me that I could do without.

Her friends, and even her husband, know little of the personality underneath. They see only her brilliance, and speak, hinting, of the need for her art to be supported (her novel, her musical, her songs). Yes, true, but they are unaware of 30 years of uninhibited support, where every resource poured into her and she did nothing with it but to ask for more. One of the reasons I can't live anywhere near my mother is that my own hesitant pursuit of writing would crumble completely under the proximity to and weight of her needs.

And yet, there is nobody who understands or supports my pursuits like my mother does. Selfish, self-absorbed, needy, draining she may be, but she stimulates my mind in ways no other can. And when my confidence falters (as it does daily), it is her words of "this is most important -- all the other reality is veiling of truth" that make me lift my chin and keep going.

My mother taught me that messiness was good. And not just by letting me paint whatever I felt like as a child (pictures, stencils, walls, furniture ...). A messy life makes you look at the world from odd angles. It makes you see things others don't, and in ways others never can.

This is why I've never attempted to publish my memoir about my mother, my childhood. I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can brushstroke the strengths through the pain and rage and violence and fear. It is not enough to say, "My mother made me appreciate creativity." It will take years before I can wrap my head around, and appreciate, and write about fairly, the worldview she gave me.