Opening Up

As this country begins to gradually (not gradually) open up again, I’m wondering what this means to me. I’m happy for all of the people who now feel comfortable enough to resume outside work for a way to keep food on the table and those who have felt it unbearable to be trapped in their own spaces to finally venture back out. My existence didn’t change much because I live a fairly solitary day to day removed, while leading a self-employed life, with everything I do being largely here in my home. I feel very grateful that I am content to continue on in this way. However, my children, my husband, and many friends need “out” and I hope they’re able to get that soon. They are dismayed and somewhat concerned by my lack of needing an outside world and others can’t fathom my lack of energy toward a “distance” walk or meet up somewhere. The truth is that I am fine. Not terrified of the outdoors or suffering from some private depression or reclusive malady. Instead, it’s been a gift. It’s been a long time since feeling centered and having an inspired desire to work as consistently as I have during this time. Depression came to me post inauguration and stayed for a very long time, while the news and all its racism, vitriol, and violence kept piling high. This time of quarantine gave me personal permission to find my peace in my way and at my speed and thankfully I have reclaimed my creative footing. If I don’t have that, for me and only me, I am on a path towards being lost. It is the thing, outside of my family, which sustains me and keeps me hopeful: gives me purpose.

And in crept the mother/daughter story after all.

Back to work!

I thought I was needing to write something having to do with the mother/daughter story today but it has trickled out more as a gentle need to reflect on what it means to me, to “open up”. I guess my opening up has had more to do with the ability to write each day like an easy faucet, without cajoling or trickery, to be present in what is all around me, to continue to resist the bullshit within these private walls with rigor, to support my fellow artists & friends who have fought mightily against this virus, and to create. I suppose, more than anything, I have been spending most of my time opening up about my mother and our complex lives together and not together.

And in crept the mother/daughter story after all. Back to work!

Mother Daughter Legacy

More and more I consider what thoughts, experiences and feelings I hope to leave behind with my children. I first land on what my own mother has left me with and ponder the positive. Plenty of the other to go ‘round and all of that toxic related thought can be like a bad swill that seems to never leave my tastebuds.

I’ve primarily grown up reflecting on and basking in the fearlessness which my father possessed but he was one half of a whole and it is only more recently that I am able to look at my mother with the same reverence and regard. She too was fearless. First I think about how she ran after her passion for dancing and at a young age swallowed it whole to commit, with everything she had, to to be extraordinary, which she was. Fear did not keep her from pursuing a life of eating, sleeping and breathing dance nor did she shy from where those dancing dreams would take her. Next I reflect on her fearlessness to not only fall in love (which can be as terrifying as it is heavenly) but with this African American specimen of beauty and talent who was my father. Not only was he obviously “exotic” to a European classical ballet company, a beautiful dancer and a gorgeous man but she also said “yes” knowing of my father’s fluid proclivity and proceeded to marry him, have his children and leave all that she knew behind to follow love to the U.S. These are not small decisions to say yes to and I acknowledge the bravery and blind faith it took to make those life choices. And while her abandonment of me did not end up being the most loving, nurturing or lasting I must also acknowledge her feminism and rebellious action to choose what she felt she needed to do to survive. Good, bad or indifferent there is some important and impressive power in that. Could I do that? I would hope that nothing would ever come between the ferocious love I have for my daughters but that’s me standing in my shoes and not my mother’s. I don’t know all the intricacies and sorrows of her past or the daily demons she must feed to keep them quiet. A friend of mine once commented on how another friend of mine was not the best person to count on because she was “broken”. That day I kept my response to myself but I was silently furious with her judgment. Who is not, on some level, broken? Anyone who knows me and my journey with my mother knows that I am never quick to give a pass of total absolution or forgiveness. I am still working on that. However, I recognize “the unbearable lightness of being” and know that life can be hard and cruel but we are all struggling to make sense of it and try sculpting out of it some shape of a thing called happiness.

I think I want to leave my children having rubbed on them a bit of knowledge, a bit of street smarts, an access to experience humor, realizing their own potential greatness while also accepting their human imperfections, moving through their lives with a dash of grace, a fearlessness about hard work, celebration of their talents and passions, creating reasons to be festive, practicing big doses of kindness, to never give up believing in a little bit of magic, to embrace what is different and unique about themselves, to live in their female skin with power and confidence and reminding them that absolutely EVERYTHING that has been my story, their father’s story, their grandparents and those before them; from slavery to hash tags flows in their veins has left them with a rich and strong legacy.

LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD

I”m sitting here trying to figure our what I want to say on this day before I turn 54. A nice biggish number. A good number. I naturally tend to look back a bit before moving forward. I like to use this as a springboard to help propel me. I know that I can’t help but think of Studio 54, which was like a second home to many of us growing up running the streets in New York City in the decadent ‘80’s. I also think of Xenon, Milk Bar, Area and later Nell’s but 54 still stands out as being the mother of iconic clubs during that time. What a time! What an incredible, unforgettable and ridiculously fun time. I’m thinking about Jaime Levy, Dru Davis, Hilary Morse, David Campbell, Anthony Barrile, Jeanine Primm and so many others. I think about them more than my mother. Or do I?

My mother was in fact nowhere to be found during that gently rebellious and largely incoherent period in my life. That time was at once a psychedelic blur and equally alive with day-glo pictures in my mind that are eerily bold and clear. This was also a time when I never talked to anyone about my mother. I didn’t have one. I’d privately decided that I didn’t have one because I didn’t feel she was one worth sharing about. I was deeply ashamed of the mother I had. It was MY shame although she had abandoned me. Funny how that works. Not unique or unexpected but so absurdly fascinating. I was doing drugs and crashing at a different friend’s house every other night not to think about her. I didn’t know that then. I may have thought that I was running (metaphorically speaking) from home with my father and Chip and my same sex parents that I didn’t fully understand but in actuality it was my mother’s absence that was the deadly dose of absinthe in my gut.

In 1985, my senior year in high school, I was hired as a dancer in the movie The Cotton Club directed by Frances Ford Coppola. The very progressive and supportive high school principal at the time happened to be a black woman and gave me a pass to take that job. Before starting that work I’d been in the city and was leaving my manager’s office (Kids ‘N Company) on 7th Avenue when I bumped into an old friend from my PCS (Professional Children’s School) days. She was just starting work on the film Footloose, directed by Herbert Ross, to play one of the supporting roles. I’d mentioned that I’d gone back to Jersey to school after I’d stopped dancing for two years, and would need to commute to Silver Cup Studios in Queens for the film. She asked if I wanted to stay with her on 72nd and Columbus Ave., which was a very lovely offer by the way. Anyone would have jumped at the chance to be living in that neighborhood, especially at that time. It was one of the most trendy and popular areas to live, eat and shop. I ended up working day jobs on that Avenue for a stint at Kenneth Cole and then Charivari.

While I lived with her, we each worked on our fun projects. We were young, carefree, focused and loving life. Then I was told that my mother was looking for me. I hadn’t heard from her nor looked for her in years. My father told me she’d called and wanted to see me. He told her I was working and living back in the city. My first response was, “Why?” and then, “No.” The last time I’d seen her I was eleven years old and had the Chicken Pox. Now I was eighteen and had successfully (or so I thought) stuffed thoughts of her so far down my throat that she never or rarely entered my mind, yet here she came to knock on my door. I vaguely remember dodging the calls. I knew that she would be in town for a limited amount of time. I finally gave in to at least talking to her on the phone. I told her that I didn’t think it would be possible to see her, as my schedule was too busy with work on the film. I should also mention that I lived for each and every day I had to be at Silver Cup. It was work but to me more like a party because it didn’t feel like work and I was getting paid lovely for it, at eighteen. I was not looking for anything to disrupt my Shangri La. We had some back and forth on the phone as we’d always had. I finally said no and she was furious. ‘She’d come all this way and I couldn’t make time for her?!” My reply, “Sorry Mom but I don’t think this can work.” I was in full license mode to live my life my way and making that decision completely on my own. It felt freeing and liberating. I was absolutely shocked and offended that she presumed my immediate willingness to halt it all so she could be my mother for two hours. Of course, later I would recognize this behavior as status quo and her “normal”. She was incensed with me and I was not moved. I remember walking down Columbus Avenue after that call, holding my head extra high and light as a feather knowing that I had friends, my father and Chip and an artist community ready and willing to embrace me with unconditional open arms and a great job at Silver Cup to go back to.

I’m older now than my mother was then, which is a strange consideration. On the one hand it’s perhaps a sad story to think that at this approaching age of 54 the dynamic between my mother and I hasn’t changed that much; not really so much for the better. And yet there has been change. I am different. I’ve come a long way from the angry teen who wanted nothing more than to make her feel the pain I’d felt all my young years growing up that came from her lack of presence. I was sorry for myself then. I am sorry for her today because it is she who has missed out; not only on what our relationship could have been but on that with her grand daughters.

At almost 54, I feel grateful to have arrived where I stand in my life, with my children and with my mother. There comes a time when you realize one can only do what one can do. I can only assume that she has been doing the best with what she’s got, as I am doing the same. The difference is that I had a blast growing up inside the walls of Studio 54, the historic memories of my time working on the Cotton Club movie all those years ago and have a rich, wonderful and ever-evolving relationship with both of my daughters. Turning 54 doesn’t look so bad after all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS TO US

So yesterday was my mother’s birthday. Fun fact. To all who know me well, I have a very strange relationship with retaining my friends and family birthdays, including my beloved father’s and Chip’s, but have never forgotten my brother’s or my mother’s birthday. Why is that? Of all of the birth dates that I have held onto how and why have I held onto my mother’s? It could just be that it’s a random retention based on my brain liking the date “September 19th” or it could be something more. Since I spent my whole young life shedding any association or even acknowledging that I indeed had a mother, why didn’t I throw her birth date into the deep dark closet along with everything else I was trying so hard to separate myself from, where she was concerned. As a sidebar, I should also mention that in all of these decades of life on this planet, she has only wished me a happy birthday maybe twice in all this time since eleven years old. This is just to say that there has existed no reciprocal allegiance to “returning the favor” of a Happy Birthday and yet… Another curious thing, that just dawned on me yesterday for the first time, is that I actually remember having no birthday celebrations with my mother at all. Not one. Growing up my father would remind me what a good and doting mother she was, how happy we were and what positive memories I should have but-nothing. Of course this adds to a loss of almost any positive memories with her at all. Also strange. Even my first therapist commented that she found it odd, given that that kind of black hole is usually created for our own protection against severely traumatic events. I don’t recall any, other than a slap across my face when I was younger. I was talking with a friend a week ago and we were sharing our mother/daughter issues and she had a similar story of not remembering, then years later wondered if perhaps there had been something she’d been trying to suppress. I can’t help but wonder that for myself but still have no answers. However, despite all of this historical lack of birthday magic between my mother and me, celebrating MY birthday is one of the biggest events of my year. I unabashedly want EVERYONE to remember and celebrate my birthday with me. It’s a kind of running joke. Not entirely fair when I can guarantee, for the most part, only remembering my husband’s, my children’s, my brother’s and my mother’s birthdays. My father and Chip (his life partner) made sure that my brother and I had the most festive, happy and memorable birthdays, every year. Every year, wherever I was, my birthday from them was NEVER forgotten. So what about this contrasting combination of never forgetting my mother’s birthday who never acknowledged mine and this hyper need to celebrate my birthday in a big way every chance I get? I could look at the birthday neglect as a heartless (kind off is) and premeditated act and respond with a big ole metaphoric flip of the bird (which if I’m honest, there’s always a little bit of that in there) OR I could thank her for the snub because it has made my hunger for a day of attention and acknowledgment of ME only grow like a wild and fun birthday beast. Since now at the age of fifty-three I am more intentionally trying the “high road” path, I will hitch my birthday wagon to the latter. Because along with the sadness and heartbreak of my mother/daughter story I am trying really hard to discover more light. For at the end of the day I do recognize that more light does bend us towards more love.

To my friends and family, while I do think I’ve gotten better I still have a ways to go with returning the TIMELY birthday love. Thank you all for not holding this against me. I will continue to try harder. To my mother, although I didn’t reach out yesterday on her birthday (did I mention I still have more work to do?), I hope she did have a lovely birthday and thanks again to her because guess what? My birthday is coming up on October 3rd!! I can’t help it. It’s one of my healthier and happier “issues”. ;)

TO HOLLAND AND BACK.

What happened on your trip to see your mother?!

It was many things. It was a bit scary, intriguing, made me feel sick to my stomach and potentially want to punch myself in the face because I KNEW BETTER. Or did I? Eternal optimism has never been my strongest wheelhouse but I am addicted to trying to grow like a moth to a flame. The reality was that it had never ended well between us.

This would be my fourth time seeing her since I was eleven years old. This was not your typical visit to your mother’s house. It was, in any case, not MY typical visit to my mother’s house. In all honesty, I really didn’t want to do it. But despite the ebbing nausea and fatigue which hung on me that morning like a heavy wool coat three sizes too big, I was determined. I’d made a commitment to myself to see this through. No “wouldda, shouldda, couldda” and so I would do it.

In her small flat of three little rooms in Arnhem, Holland we sat, we talked, we laughed nervously, we side stepped emotional minefields and stayed in the no-fly zone of our strange and complex history together. I’d made a pact with myself the night before that I would do everything I could to make this work and have it be as palatable as possible. No pushing, no throwing up mirrors for reflection, no trick questions or outright confrontations of any kind and I delivered. And for that reason we didn’t die or kill each other. Physical is very different than on the phone. And no, I don’t mean “kill each other” literally. Instead, we drank tea and ate spoonfuls of her homemade banana pudding with the warm sun shining through the chiffon curtains and the breezy day blowing the big Willow trees outside her windows. It was a lovely time. It was THE lovely time. The first lovely time that I recall ever having between us. I followed her lead. I learned bits and pieces of new and cryptic stories about a raging fever I never knew I had at two years old soaking in a cool tub of water, of my father’s late night vanishings that left her literally in the dark. I apologized for that and meant it. We floated around the reasons behind her leaving, skirted around her own family history which I knew nothing about (including my grandfather’s name) and zoomed passed the moment, as we sat there, when she spoke to God aloud to exhibit His response to her through His rustling of the trees because she is “anointed” by Him then cursing the birds sitting on branches as demons that needed to go straight back to hell. She assured me that she would be the one to take care of that! Then back to tea and the lightness of our time together. The swing was dizzying but familiar. The visit was like biting into the light flakiness of a sweet cream puff only to discover at its center there sat a tablespoon of hot sauce or some other “wrong” and incongruous ingredient.

I have bread crumbs, photos, some stories. some articles and my feelings about her to make sense of it all. It is like a kind of giant puzzle or family mystery to gather together to help heal my own sanity and understand the woman who brought me into this world but whom I know less about than my neighborhood Starbucks barista. But I say to you again that it was a lovely time. We embraced again when I left. She wanted me to perhaps linger a bit longer but I was emotionally disoriented and needed mooring again soon. Despite the lovely, I still felt that familiar sensation of being adrift.

I left the flat, inhaled and exhaled the sunshine, reminded myself that I’d done it, the we survived and after several days was back state side in my suburban American home. I basked in the partial glow of success about our time spent together but only partially. Could I trust it? Because of my history with my mother, I’ve spent a lifetime pushing back against the always persistent inevitability of that other show dropping.

But I trusted.

I wanted more information on her family history. My family history. If only she might be willing to help just a little. I called to ask. The short story? I began with thanking her for inviting me to visit with her and shared what a nice time I’d had.

She hung up on me within five minutes.

Despite all of the Holland “lovely”, she’d almost instantly reverted back to her standard response to me with every phone conversation we’d had since I was ten years old. I’d been to Holland and back but felt Id never left. Initially I felt I’d arrived at the same place she’d always dropped me so carelessly into. And yet we did have that nearly two hour oasis that I could hold in a special place of treasuring although we’d never had it before and which I might never experience again. Above all else I am left with two thoughts: what will I do with it all and there’s work to be done. Attempting to grow and evolve is never the easy way out but rigorously imperative.

THE MOTHER/DAUGHTER CHRONICLES

Each day brings me a new and interesting chip, bit or piece of trying to “find” my mother. Although I know where she physically lives (in Arnhem, Holland), I remain on the outside looking in to finding her tangible and meaningful footprints in the fabric of my life.

I had an “aha” moment a couple of weeks ago, thanks to a response from my husband. It might not seem like a mind-blowing revelation to most but for me, something shifted in a positive and more aligned way. Up until that time, I’d been talking about and referring to this new memoir as “a book about my mother”. I’d mentioned this description yet again while talking to my husband about something related to it. He said, “But it’s not really. A book about your mother. It’s similar to what happened with your first book.” My first book, NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE began as a biography about my father but along the way became a journey about growing up with my father, the unique upbringing I’d had with him and a kind of love letter to him. Byron was telling me that this would appear to unravel into a similar journey. “It is more about the relationship you’ve had with your mother and how you have not only learned how to navigate despite her abandonment of you but how you’ve continued to strive despite it.” BOOM! Aha! Yes, that is the story. It is again my story, my memoir. Her story would need to be written by her, especially since there is so much I don’t know. This book is about living with the “elephant” that has been the disappearance of my mother in my life, how I reacted to it, railed against it, ignored it, been privately destroyed at moments by it, irrevocably somewhat broken because of it but determined to survive it. And, as an important sidebar, went on to raise two daughters not having that mother example but have somehow miraculously still managed to create healthy and loving relationships with them.

There will still be plenty of detective work, as I set out to connect dots of genealogy since I know absolutely nothing about her family (my family), seek out others to provide some personal insights and anecdotes about her and scour my own memory bank to extricate more positive recollections about her. All of these things add up to in a sense to “finding” my mother. But more importantly I plan on wrestling with and looking as honestly as possible to my own emotions about what it means to exist in a life with a space never filled and walk with a lifetime of unanswered questions.

I hope you’ll join me as I continue to fill in the puzzle and chronicle the journey! AW

PS If YOU have any mother/daughter stories or insights of your own, please don’t hesitate to share to help create a collective mother/daughter conversation.