“I went to bed feeling melancholy, wishing I could have poured out all my fears and insecurities to my mom. Wasn’t that what normal mothers and daughters did?”
“I love you every day, Mom”
“[Everyone needs] a woman who ll listen, take your side, tell the truth - or not, as you need it. A woman you can count on, no matter what, and who ll love you no matter how much you screw up.”
“And also, one is a mother in order to understand the inexplicable. One is a mother to lighten the darkness. One is a mother to shield when lightning streaks the night, when thunder shakes the earth, when mud bogs one down. One is a mother in order to love without beginning or end. ”
“...be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don t squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know; don t pick people s flowers—you might catch something; don t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don t like, and that way something bad won t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn t work there are other ways, and if they don t work don t feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it s fresh; but what if the baker won t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won t let near the bread?”
“You see mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. One has only a life of one s own.”
“A mother s hardest to forgive. Life is the fruit she longs to hand you Ripe on a plate. And while you live, Relentlessly she understands you.”
“But not you, O girl, nor yet his mother, stretched his eyebrows so fierce with expectation. Not for your mouth, you who hold him now, did his lips ripen into these fervent contours. Do you really think your quiet footsteps could have so convulsed him, you who move like dawn wind? True, you startled his heart; but older terrors rushed into him with that first jolt to his emotions. Call him . . . you ll never quite retrieve him from those dark consorts. Yes, he wants to, he escapes; relieved, he makes a home in your familiar heart, takes root there and begins himself anew. But did he ever begin himself?”
“I thought of my mother as Queen Christina, cool and sad, eyes trained on some distant horizon. That was where she belonged, in furs and palaces of rare treasures, fireplaces large enough to roast a reindeer, ships of Swedish maple.”
“this is how you smile to someone you don t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don t know you very well, and this way they won t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming;”
“Babies of around one year old are often active by day and wake frequently at night, for no obvious reason. Then a mother can feel desparate for sleep yet equally desparate to comfort her baby when he needs her at night. I have spoken to many mothers who have sacrificed their own sleep, waking up numerous times every night because their babies cried for them. It seems terrible that these hardworking women think of themselves as failures as a result. Surely a mother who has chosen to sacrifice her sleep deserves respect and admiration for her generous mothering.”
“One mother could look after twelve children and decades later these twelve adults would fidget and struggle to look after that one mother.”
“We only have babies when we re young enough not to know how grim life turns out.”
“You know who you belong to, Jack?” “Yeah.” “Yourself.” He’s wrong, actually, I belong to Ma.”
“Think of your mother and smile for all of the good precious moments.”
“Mother s ways are higher than others, even when everyone rejects, mother accepts with her arms open and wide.”
“Rather than feeling vindicated, I felt guilty. It seemed cruel, and all my fault, somehow. My relationship with my mother had always brought into question any sense I had of myself as a good and decent person. [p. 128]”