Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
I’ve come to think of this post as one where you come for the music and stay for the conversation—so feel free to drop a note. The diarist gets to sleep in if she so desires and can show up long after the post is published. So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.
Join us, please.
Prefatory Note: As you might have figured out, Joy of Fishes is taking a break. We can all use a hiatus now and again (I’ve done it as well); so for the foreseeable future we will have fill-in posts from me. Which brings me to reaching out for anyone interested in hosting a Morning Open Thread. We have Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays available.
If you’re interested, just drop me a kosmail and let me know.
Good morning everyone.
Today is Mother’s Day and a difficult day for me if I think about it too deeply. If you’ve read much of what I write, you know I had a particularly difficult relationship with my mother and I’m not routinely kind to her memory. But that—I realize—is unfair to her. She had 11 children and 12 pregnancies, raised a household of kids, and enjoyed the life she had. Last night I was lamenting my relationship with her when my love reminded me that she, “was not just your mother. She was a daughter, a wife, a girl once, and a woman.”
Which made me pause. My love was right, as usual (which, I admit, is annoying but I’m getting used to it). That offhand comment made me wake to the fact that no matter how much we know someone we can’t, ever, know everything about them: what they’ve lived through, what experiences they’ve had, the disappointments, the joy, the failures and successes. We can never know.
As a boy, I knew my mother as beautiful, strong headed, different than my friends’ mothers, and so fucking smart it hurt. She embarrassed me and my sisters more than once by kissing my father in public, by speaking out at times when women were expected to stay quiet, and by being bold and challenging long before women in this country—particularly in my small home town—were considered people of substance.
She grew up in the home of a domineering mother and weak father, ran away from home at 18 to join the army, and infamously never spoke to her mother again from what I can gather. Considering that I grew up in a house owned by her mother, that was probably a bit awkward for my dad. But he respected her, loved her until the day he died, and respected her even during the difficult times. And she was, to be brutally honest, crazy; years of institutionalizations and psychotropic medications helped but didn’t necessarily blunt the pain and misery of my childhood. But, still, she taught me to dance, taught me to appreciate language, literature, and poetry; she taught me that women are people with dreams and talents and aspirations; and she instilled in me a knowing that strength in people—no matter their gender—is not something to be feared.
This morning belongs to the memory of my mother who, despite it all, made me who I am. For that, if nothing else, she deserves my love and respect.
☕️
Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?