"Your mother's hands"

Joel had a speaking gig on Saturday night where he delivered a twenty-minute "pop talk" as a pre-show warm-up for Hand2Mouth Theatre's production of Uncanny Valley at the Artist's Rep Theater. Joel's talk was perfectly Joel: a discussion of Hitchcock's use of the uncanny in Vertigo, among other films. His talk was well-delivered and well-received and I got to experience my usual pleasure at knowing my date was the smartest guy in the room, only it was doubly good because everyone else in the room got to know it too.

We stuck around for the performance, which H2M describes as follows:

"You are defined by a handful of memories that make you who you are, that haunt and overtake you. You recreate them in your mind but you know they're gone. You can never go back.

But what if you could?

Only by journeying into the Uncanny Valley can you come face to face with your essential memories, made palpable and alive. For ten years Hand2Mouth has rigorously trained to make this journey into the unconscious mind, and now we present a performance about the mechanism of memory, played out live in front of you by our team of seasoned performer-explorers"

I loved it. I love the idea of retrieving lost memories, mostly because I have so few organic memories myself. I think it's because my childhood was mostly good. There wasn't enough trauma to scratch many grooves into my hard drive.

One-by-one, the actors would take the stage and retrieve these memories - a housefire, a treehouse, being chased, falling down and having your older brother snap off a piece of aloe and use it as a salve on your knee.

They often employed prompts to get the memories going and that's where they got me...

"A time when you felt free.

A time when you felt loved.

When someone made you feel worthless.

Feeling stupid.

When you were kind to a stranger.

Your first kiss.

Your first hickey.

Your mother's hands."

My.

Mother's.

Hands.

None of the other prompts sparked much in me, but my mother's hands? I could see them instantly. The freckles. Every ridge in every fingernail. The way her skin crinkles when you pinch it. How the dirt fills the estuaries in her palms when she's been digging in the garden.

My mind's eye could see every detail as if they were my own hands.

I started crying like a baby. Big sloppy tears streamed down my face and since I was wearing a cheap polyester dress, I didn't even have anything to wipe them on.

The strange thing was that I didn't feel SAD. Only nostalgic. I couldn't explain the tears at all. They were just... there. Like a faucet. Exactly like when I think about the fact that Genoa turned five today. Unexplained weepiness ensues just because.

So today I talked it through with my therapist.

Have I mentioned that I'm in therapy? Apparently not, since so many commenters seem to keep recommending it to me. Since I know I'm about to get accused of using my WELFARE DOLLARS to get expensive medical treatments, let me be the first to disabuse you of that notion: I get my counseling through Portland State University's counselor education program. It's only $15 per session, which makes it a crime NOT to get therapy. On Mondays I go alone and on Tuesdays, Joel and I see a post-grad together. My individual counselor is all of 24-years-old and I love her if for no other reason than that one session I spent 45 minutes talking about my vagina and she didn't flinch AT ALL. 

Anyway, this afternoon I explained my reaction to the play and, bawling like a baby, wondered at why the thought of my mother's hands was so upsetting to me.

"Well, what did your mother DO with her hands?"

The strange thing was that up until she asked that question, the memory of my mother's hands had been like a photograph: static, stationary, motionless. But then my brain (not to mention my HEART and that queasy spot just south of my asophagus), went right to the image of her holding Alex as a baby. Feeding him warm bottles of my breastmilk. Changing his diaper. Wiping his butt. Bathing him in her stainless steel kitchen sink. Tickling him until he giggled.

The first time I saw my mother use her hands to care for my child.

Becoming a mother myself and finally GETTING IT.

Forgiveness.

But not just for my own mother. For ME.

I'm never going to be able to give my children some of the things I wanted for them - perfection, stability, belief in happily ever after, that white picket fence, both parents at their birthday parties. But when I remember my mother's hands, I'm filled with nothing but gratitude. Love. Appreciation.

Strength.

My mother did the best she could with the hands she was dealt.

If I can forgive my mother for being human, I can damn well forgive myself.

Comments

[Michelle]

Hey, you. Good for you. I am sending you a huge e-hug because you're beautiful and you're human and you're living the shit out of your life and I love you for it.

[shawn]

Damn it Amanda. It is hard to type through tears. The last picture I took of my mom right before she died, was of my hand holding her hand.

I was talking on the phone with my sister-in-law after my husband passed away, and she started crying. She explained that since her parents had passed away, that it only took the smallest, simplest things to start her tears. She used an example of an older couple getting gas. I have had many things that have made me tear up for my husband and my mom, but none like your post today.

Thank you for ... I dunno... for putting emotions into words, for reminding me that life is a circle, and that it is ok that I see that I have my mom's knees, and that I say things that I know she would say.

"But when I remember my mother's hands, I'm filled with nothing but gratitude. Love. Appreciation.
Strength.
My mother did the best she could with the hands she was dealt."

ok... now I have to get ready for work with snotty nose and red eyes. :)

[Seeeeestor]

Beautiful post. Somewhat unrelated, you should listen to this episode of the All in the Mind podcast - it touches upon grandmothers in a very eye opening way, from the perspective of evolutionary biology. Apparently humans are one of the only species that lets others care for our babies, and having our parents around while we are parents are essential to the long childhoods our children need to grow their big brains.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2011/3219017.htm

So feeling nostalgic about mom holding Alex wasn't just nostalgia, it was the millions of years of evolution inside of you saying "grandmother + baby = survival"

[Liana]

Thank you for this post. Sometimes I can relate to you on so many levels...and this is one of them. I can't give my children those either and I worry worry worry that it will affect them so horrendously in the future, but I'm doing the best I can. And I hope they can see me this way too someday.

[Jules]

Lovely.

[Jessica]

Tomorrow is the 8th anniversary of my grandmother's death. Her hands are one of the first things I picture when I think of her. She was terribly crippled, causing people to stop and stare and treat her with horrific disrespect. But those hands - they were kind and gentle, tender and sensitive. And she told me enough to know it was true that she wouldn't have traded her hands for any others. She accepted her curse as a gift of sorts. And she used those gnarled hands to help shape my world.

Tears for your healing journey and for the remembrances that make us human. Thank you for sharing today.