Sunday, May 8, 2011

My Momma Had Words With Me

~~It's Mother's Day here in the States and in Australia. I wanted to post a little essay I wrote last winter. My buddy Carole at Nietzche I'm Not was planning a book titled LESSONS I LEARNED FROM MY MOTHER and asked me to submit. Unfortunately the anthology didn't come to pass, but I do have a great little piece that tells one reason my mother is so special to me. I hope you enjoy it.

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I don’t know if it’s true anywhere else, but in the South, to “have words with” someone means to fuss, argue, or reprimand. My momma had another purpose for having words with me, for me, and around me. We didn’t discuss why people read or why it was important. My siblings and I just read. The power, magic, and glory of words surrounded us. No lectures were needed. No punishment was forthcoming to make us read. It was second nature to read. After all, our parents read in front of us every day. Momma focused on fiction while Daddy read the newspaper, biographies, and his professional journals.

So, it was all Momma’s fault that my father-in-law was shocked when my daddy built bookshelves that covered half the walls in our study from the floor to ten-foot ceiling. With wide eyes, he said, “No one has that many books!”

My husband shrugged. “She does. Everyone in her family does.” He knew there would be no wasted space in our study.

It was Momma’s fault that we take delight in words. She gave us no choice in the matter. From the time we were toddlers, we all had library cards and joined the summer reading program at the regional library branch in our home town. Every week, we checked out five books. All the librarians knew us by name.

How do you feed a growing reading habit? Momma knew. She made sure there were books to read that challenged us. She made reading more books fun and expected. When our abilities to read outstripped our ages and we needed bigger, more complex books, Momma checked out adult books for us on her own library card. As the school librarian at my elementary school, she found harder and harder books for me to read when I had read everything at the lower levels. I clearly remember reading Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson in the fifth grade. It was my first adult novel and I’ll never forget holding the large book and being carried away into old California by the words.

In time, my siblings and I found our own preferred genres. When given a list of three hundred books for college-bound students in the 1960’s, we attacked it from different angles. The fact that the complete works of Shakespeare and the great Greek historians were available in our home, made it easy to get started. My sister loves literature. My brother has a taste for biography, science, history, and adventure books. I read history, fiction of all types, and poetry.

As voracious readers, we are the people who keep bookstores—large, small and online—in business. We are the people who always have up-to-date library cards. Our to-be-read lists of new books and old favorites are extensive. None of us is bored as long as there is something to read. And that isn’t likely to happen if we live a thousand years.

It’s Momma’s fault that there is a longstanding family joke about the end of civilization. If an asteroid or other near extinction event occurred, our combined libraries would form the basis for restarting science, math, history, and literature. We could quickly raise man’s knowledge back to its former heights.

The majesty and beauty of the words I grew up with created the desire to shape and form my own stories, to create new adventures, new people to meet, and new places to go. Momma encouraged me. She kept the poetry I wrote as an eight years old. Her simple acceptance made no obstacle insurmountable. Her faith that I could do anything I wanted allowed me to experiment and try different styles. She not only taught me to love words, but the persistence it takes to shape, order, and arrange them in coherent ways. When she gave me the love of words, she gave me the tools to accomplish what I desired to do. She gave me the ability to tell stories that soothe hurts, inspire challenges, and entertain. My mother gave me life—physically, mentally, and emotionally. She gave me dreams and encouraged me to strive to reach for them. My mother gave me words to share and the persistence to achieve the dream of being a writer. She still encourages me to write and inspires me with her own voracious reading.

Thank you, Momma, for having words with me. I love you.

18 comments:

  1. Yes, "have words with" is a saying we know in Aus too - it means "I'm going to tell you off for what you did wrong!"

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  2. Thanks, Trisha. I never know if any of my Southernisms will translate.

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  3. Lovely piece Zan Marie :). Very good written.

    Sarah

    P.S. It´s Mother´s Day in Germany to .

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  4. Hey, Sarah! Hope you have/had a lovely Mother's Day and thanks for the comment.

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  5. Thanks for sharing this again Zan Marie! It's such a lovely piece, especially the part about not only loving words but having the persistence to shape them. Yay for books and reading - and writing!

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  6. Thanks, Deniz. When MeccaFest comes in October and my local crit group hosts "Local Voices", a public reading program, I'll read it to an audience. I think it will be well received.

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  7. This was a wonderful tribute, and fun to read. My momma took us to the library regularly as little ones too, even before they built one in our town and we have to drive a ways. I might have come to reading some other way, but that was a huge factor.

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  8. Lori,
    I love stories of mothers passing down the reading bug. My mother's mother did it for her and Momma just kept on giving.

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  9. Love this post. And isn't it interesting that Mother's Day is the same in the US and Australia but different in the UK? According to my friend in Wales, it happened a couple of weeks ago there.

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  10. Love this. Thank you for your kind comment on Rachael's blog. I'm glad that you enjoyed the interview!

    And yes -- pigeons are for chasing. New Yorkers disagree for some reason . . .

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  11. Charlotte,
    Add Germany to the list with us. It is very interesting. I'd love to know how many times a year you could celebrate Mom if you used an international calendar...

    Bess,
    Thanks! Well, New York is different than what I'm used to. Not to say I didn't enjoy my visit. I *loved* the difference, but I'm a Southern girl at heart. ; )

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  12. An expression I am familiar with. To have words with. I too had a mother who must take responsibility for the mountains of books in my home. Our weekly trips to the library and her membership to one of those mail in book clubs. The books we read and discussed over a cup of tea in the evenings after school.

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  13. That sounds like my mother and me. We constantly loan books to each other. ; )

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  14. Wonderful tribute to your mother, Zan.

    One of the things I'm most proud of is the fact that both of my kids love to read and get excited about going to the library, even though we do it almost weekly. And I can only hope they pass their love of books on to their own children.

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  15. I'm sure they will. Reading is contagious. ; )

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  16. It's taken me awhile to get here Zan Marie, but here I am. I loved this. My mum was like yours. Books everywhere.I'm the same. I can't imagine ereaders replacing the fun of seeing walls of books. Yummee. And I love the smell of old books. In Australia, 'to have words with'means to argue, take to task.

    Denise

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  17. Love it! You had a wonderful mama!

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