by Don White (Central Park, Burnaby) It resounded like a rifle firing, perhaps a cannon ball landing. An SUV had slammed into the back of my SUV. My head hit the back of the headrest. I went dizzy. “Stay calm,” I coached myself. “You’re still in the driver’s seat.” I had slowed to make a […]
Of U-Turns, A Jeep Wrangler, and Explosions … Read More »
by JCT(Loves)Streisand* One day while visiting home in North Carolina–I had married and was living in Boston–my mother, while picking out a dress to wear to a funeral commented that she had refused her first proposal because the man who had requested her hand did not, she believed, own enough financial capital. Financial capital for
Of Marriage Proposals, Regret and Capital … Read More »
by JCT(Loves)Streisand* My first pregnancy occurred when I was twenty-seven. It was planned. A young minister’s wife had said, after hearing my lament the emptiness I was feeling then in the fourth year of my marriage, “You need a child.” This was probably an easy response for her to make in that at twenty-eight
Of Marriage, Freedom, and A First Pregnancy … Read More »
Leaving my mother and marrying my husband did not free me of her words, nor her way of thinking and perceiving myself and the world. It, in fact. strengthened the critic within me.
Fed, clothed and nurtured by my mother and her harsh words, the inner critic, was my connection to my mother. Painful as it could be, I embraced the inner critic, not knowing what I was doing.
I was going to be the perfect wife. With my husband away much of the time for wor
Of Patterns by Vogue, Seeking Perfection and The Inner Critic … Read More »
I would not suggest that the entire Cherokee nation has a problem with speaking harsh words, both to others and internally. And yet that has been my experience. Growing up with my mother I did not have learn how to reprimand myself. Experience as my mother’s daughter bequeathed me a well-developed inner critic.
I have internalized all her sayings, those spoken to me and for my benefit, along with others generalizing life and others.
My bouts with depression and my predisposition to blame
Of Pessimism, Doubt and The Need for Escape … Read More »
My mother kept emotional matters close to her chest, except when she became rageful and began hitting me and/or my brother in the guise of spanking us as a form of discipline.
I wish my mother had talked more and hit less. Now she talked a lot as it was. The words she spoke, not just to me, or my brother or father, were often very unkind.
My mother could be and was quite judgmental to everyone. Which leads me to wonder
Of Gallstones, Anger and Healing Yourself … Read More »
The greatest challenge of having been my mother’s daughter was trying to please her and feeling that I always failed. My mother always seemed anxious and/or sad. She was always working.
And this was after she had come home from having worked as a teacher in the nearby elementary school. She made all my dresses and the pants I wore until I graduated high school and went to college.
She planted a garden in spring and harvest the vegetable during the summer
Of Hopes, Dreams and Wishes and The Challenge of Being My Mother’s Daughter … Read More »