my mother's daughter
there are days when i know for certain that i am my mother's daughter. there's something almost tangible about those moments when i feel a part of our mother-daughter relationship slipping into the everyday. it's always a bit of a shock, but not always displeasing. specific traits mark me out as my mother's daughter: the ability to bake very good bread from scratch (also due in part to spending some of my childhood living in a house rented from italian immigrants), a personality quirk that friends call "scrappiness" and less-than-friends have other words for (something that enabled my mom to meet the challenges of being a single parent), a knowledge, alabeit somewhat disturbing, of the genre of the western film from the 1930s-1970s, and last but by no means least, the ability to change a tire.
it was the latter that i employed this morning when, after rowing practice, one of my crewmates found she had a flat tire. in a panic because she didn't have a membership to the auto club and she didn't want to attempt the change on her own, i found myself nonchalently offering to change it for her. in that moment of offering, there it was -- the tangible knowledge of my ancestry. now, incidently, there has been a strange spat of flat tires at the rowing club lately. just a week ago, i helped another friend change a tire on a different car (lets not talk about our inability to see the 1-800 volvo assist number stickered to the back window!), so my tire-changing skills have had little chance to get rusty. soon, with the help of another friend, i had the hubcap off, the car jacked up, the bolts off and i was replacing the flat with the little doughnut spare from beneath the lining of the trunk.
in the process of changing the tire, i couldn't help but recall a story that my mom had told me about one of her tire changing experiences. it was her first day of work at a new hospital as a medical technician. she dressed up in a white pant suit and took extra time with her hair and make up that morning because she wanted to make a good first impression (hmm ... so that's where i get it from). on the way to work along a two lane country highway she got a flat tire. muttering under her breath words that she didn't think were proper to pass on to an 8-year old the first time she told me this story, she got out of her car and began that now too-familiar process of prying off the hubcap.
approaching in the distance was a car that slowed and pulled over to the edge of the road. a middle-aged, distinguished looking man got out and offered, quite civilly to give my mom a hand. her hair was disheveled from the wind that was blowing and her white pant suit had acquired more than one greasy smudge. in a fit of temper and materialist feminism she barked back that she was fine and she could change the tire herself. the man seemed somewhat taken aback. he hadn't been at all condescending, but without another word, he got back into his car and drove off.
my mom managed to get the spare tire on, which i guess in the early 1970s was more along the lines of a regular tire as opposed to those "don't go over 80km an hour or you might die" mini-tires they hide under the trunk lining. she arrived late at work, a completely wind-blown and greasy mess. as she was taken to meet other employees at the hospital she tried to forget that she looked and smelled a little like the guy who pumps gas at the corner station. the first person she was taken to meet was the head of the hospital, and as she and her new colleague approached the man coming down the hallway from the opposite direction, my mother had a horrid, dawning realization. seconds later she was standing face to face with the man who had an hour ago stopped on the road side and offered to change her tire.
in my tire-changing career, i've met with many helpful people from the bourgeois man who slows his sports car to offer to call a tow truck for me to the three city workers driving three big orange dump trucks who all climbed down from their truck cabs to help a friend and i. i've learned the importance of both asserting my ability (there's my mom's materialist feminism for you) as well as of graciously accepting help. i think that might be another way that i'm my mother's daughter: she taught me to negotiate the inherent contradictions of being a woman and the trick of balancing those contradictions in everyday life. i don't always do it successfully, but when i manage to scrape by, i'm reminded just a little more of what an amazing woman my mom is.
it was the latter that i employed this morning when, after rowing practice, one of my crewmates found she had a flat tire. in a panic because she didn't have a membership to the auto club and she didn't want to attempt the change on her own, i found myself nonchalently offering to change it for her. in that moment of offering, there it was -- the tangible knowledge of my ancestry. now, incidently, there has been a strange spat of flat tires at the rowing club lately. just a week ago, i helped another friend change a tire on a different car (lets not talk about our inability to see the 1-800 volvo assist number stickered to the back window!), so my tire-changing skills have had little chance to get rusty. soon, with the help of another friend, i had the hubcap off, the car jacked up, the bolts off and i was replacing the flat with the little doughnut spare from beneath the lining of the trunk.
in the process of changing the tire, i couldn't help but recall a story that my mom had told me about one of her tire changing experiences. it was her first day of work at a new hospital as a medical technician. she dressed up in a white pant suit and took extra time with her hair and make up that morning because she wanted to make a good first impression (hmm ... so that's where i get it from). on the way to work along a two lane country highway she got a flat tire. muttering under her breath words that she didn't think were proper to pass on to an 8-year old the first time she told me this story, she got out of her car and began that now too-familiar process of prying off the hubcap.
approaching in the distance was a car that slowed and pulled over to the edge of the road. a middle-aged, distinguished looking man got out and offered, quite civilly to give my mom a hand. her hair was disheveled from the wind that was blowing and her white pant suit had acquired more than one greasy smudge. in a fit of temper and materialist feminism she barked back that she was fine and she could change the tire herself. the man seemed somewhat taken aback. he hadn't been at all condescending, but without another word, he got back into his car and drove off.
my mom managed to get the spare tire on, which i guess in the early 1970s was more along the lines of a regular tire as opposed to those "don't go over 80km an hour or you might die" mini-tires they hide under the trunk lining. she arrived late at work, a completely wind-blown and greasy mess. as she was taken to meet other employees at the hospital she tried to forget that she looked and smelled a little like the guy who pumps gas at the corner station. the first person she was taken to meet was the head of the hospital, and as she and her new colleague approached the man coming down the hallway from the opposite direction, my mother had a horrid, dawning realization. seconds later she was standing face to face with the man who had an hour ago stopped on the road side and offered to change her tire.
in my tire-changing career, i've met with many helpful people from the bourgeois man who slows his sports car to offer to call a tow truck for me to the three city workers driving three big orange dump trucks who all climbed down from their truck cabs to help a friend and i. i've learned the importance of both asserting my ability (there's my mom's materialist feminism for you) as well as of graciously accepting help. i think that might be another way that i'm my mother's daughter: she taught me to negotiate the inherent contradictions of being a woman and the trick of balancing those contradictions in everyday life. i don't always do it successfully, but when i manage to scrape by, i'm reminded just a little more of what an amazing woman my mom is.
posted by Amanda Bonner at 12:37 p.m.
2 Comments:
We all need our mommies sometimes... especially when we are writing a paper and its raining and we want to sook... or at least we need our Shannon!
you can do it! soon the lump baby will be submitted to margaret and you'll have time to think about other, more fun things (like harry potter!)
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