photo courtesy of blackoncampus.com
Dear Toni (I hope you don't mind if I call you Toni?),Thank you for your wisdom. strength. clarity. intellect. honesty.
Thanks for becoming a writer. Thanks for everything you've taught me. I've lived vicariously through your characters and learned awful things about myself, but wonderful things too, about life and what it means to be me and a woman and a mother.
Thanks for stretching my mind. and even though so many of your books and literary devices acted like splinters in my brain, I think the mental scarring they've left and continue to leave have made me a better person and a more capable reader.
I admire you.
Sincerely,
Jen
P.S. Thanks, also, for this wonderful statement you made years ago where you described motherhood as
the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. . . .Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal "other." The children's demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. All that went by. You've seen the eyes of your children. They don't want to hear it. They want to know what you are going to do now-today. Somehow all the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me-whatever that was-but somebody actually needed me to be that. It's different from being a daughter. It's different from being a sister. If you listen to your children and look at them, they make demands that you can live up to. They don't need all that overwhelming love either. I mean, that's just you being vain about it. If you listen to them, somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want. . . . I found that extraordinary.
From an interview with Bill Moyers, 1989.
O'Reilly, Andrea. Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart. State University of New York, 2004.
4 comments:
That is one of the best quotes on motherhood I have ever read! Thanks so much Jen, I loved it! I might have to share that some day.
I hear you about the brain-splintering :) I am amazed to reread some Toni Morrison now that I am a mother because there is just so much depth that I didn't catch the first time around, so much working out that complicated identity. And I do love this quote...I've never read it before. I'm so glad you posted it.
That is such a beautiful quote. I absolutely love it. Thank you for sharing! I always find your posts important and intellectually stimulating.
PS saw you the other day across campus; I wanted to shout hello but thought that might seem a little weird! Hope your tests/papers/etc are going well.
PPS Dave and I are devastated you are leaving! We'll have to find an excuse to see you guys still.
that is an absolutely beautiful quote.
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