"I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience is." -Willa Cather, My Antonia
November leaves me pensive and nostalgic as the holidays loom. I am more content to sit. Sit with new insight into old memories. I'm re-reading one of my favorite novels, My Antonia by Willa Cather. I read My Antonia for the first time in the 7th grade and it was the first novel that made me sob myself to sleep. I reread this novel in college and was surprised at the fresh perspective and understanding that maturity brought, a well of deeper emotions to draw from. I am reading the novel again now because of the memory of sentiment it brought me. The longing for youth, as Jim returns to his childhood love's home, feels comforting in its familiarity as I let myself wander into memories of the "incommunicable past."
I recieved a priceless gift this month. A letter from my mother. My mother's name was Debbie, and she died in a tragic car accident a month before my twin sister and I turned five. She was 28. My entire life she has been an unknown legend. She was "recklessly untame" as one of her dear friends has described her in a recent letter. Her funeral was full of bikers and wildlings. Most of her friends are dead and surround her pink granite tombstone in Statesville. I used to run to this tombstone, lean my back against it and cry in high school as I struggled with boys, fought with my Dad and my sister, and just generally tried to figure myself out.
I tried to be just like her, in ways that I am now ashamed of, as the truth is that she wasn't exactly perfect. I set out to learn all the lessons she learned the hard way--the same way. I am told I am most like her in the ways in which I don't try-- she also liked to cook, loved dogs, loved books. When I turned 29 in May, a day after my sweet loving grandfather died, I realized I could let go of my ideas of who she was and could finally be myself. I've lived beyond her and can embrace my adulthood undefined. What freedom this brings me.
The letter I recieved from her was written to her friend, Carol, who had moved to Germany. Carol returned to NC many years later and I am happy to have her letters and blessings in my life, as well as another friend of my mother's, Gena. Gena attended one of the recent Yoga on the Mountain hikes. I was so touched by her presence and interest in my life. I like to imagine my own friends playing this kind, supportive role in my future children's life (if anything should happen to me). And, of course, I imagine playing this role for my friends' children (Jackson, Maddie, Sadie, Tully, Reid, Miles, and more to come soon!).
The letter contained the words of a soon to be young mother, 7 months pregnant in Florida, where she had moved with my Dad for his new job. She explains how she was placed on bed-rest because her doctor said she was too small to have twins. She seems so innocent, anxious, so young. She mentions how difficult it is to name someone, how hard it is to lean down and tie her shoes.
My whole life I wanted to hear these things from my mother's mouth. But now I can appreciate that I am at an age to truly understand the words she'd written. My image of my mother has changed as I've aged-- affected by how she has been described to me, by who I wanted her/needed her to be, and who I wanted to be. This letter reminds me of her innocence and her youth and I ache for all that has been lost. But the letter reminds me also of the shadows I've put on her memory through the years. It's a relief to see her clearly--with a little more perspective, a little more understanding of how little she could have understood about life in her death.
