Have Mother, Will Travel: A Mother and Daughter Discover Themselves, Each Other, and the World

by Claire Fontaine

  On the other hand, I have to admit some envy of that Malaysian mother’s authority. I know I can be a little neurotic at times, but I also know that mothers usually know what they’re talking about. We’ve been around the block, and we almost always have our daughter’s best interest at heart, sometimes more than they themselves do. There isn’t a woman I know who hasn’t said they wished they’d listened to their mother when they were young on some of life’s big issues. Sometimes years of our lives are lost because we don’t see ourselves as clearly, or respect ourselves as much, as our moms do, and we’re too cocky to acknowledge that someone fifty-five might know a little more about life than someone twenty-five, especially where the three Big Ms of women’s lives are concerned: mothering, money, and men.

  Perhaps in this regard, mothering from now on won’t be terribly different than when she was younger—I’ll have to pick my battles, find a middle ground between Caroline and the mom in the market.

  If you’ve seen Madea’s warning expression on the cover of Tyler Perry’s Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, you’ll know exactly the kind of look that’s inspiring a Malaysian cabdriver to shrink back in his seat like a sheepish child.

  Fifteen minutes ago, I wanted to pull my hair out because after hours of careful planning, it seemed impossible to cross the Malaysia-Singapore border. After a sad good-bye to Aza last night, we boarded an evening bus to the port city of Melaka, woke up at five A.M., completed six Melaka scavenges in two hours, and sprinted to catch an eight A.M. bus to the border city of Johor Bahru. After admiring the gleaming Sultan’s Palace and sparkling azure Strait of Melaka, we sped over to the Malaysia-Singapore border to find a taxi to take us across.

  Who knew this would be like trying to enter North Korea. Only certain taxis can cross the border, and they can only do so a limited number of times a day. After we pleaded unsuccessfully with several drivers, meeting the other teams tonight in Singapore seemed impossible.

  Enter Cheryl and Konra, a mother-daughter duo newly back from Singapore. While chatting (conversation is inevitable when two American mother-daughter duos find themselves at a Malaysian bus depot), we explain our dilemma to them. Cheryl raises a brow, and without another word she marches over to the cab she just exited. We can’t hear her conversation with the driver, but we don’t need to. The more firmly she plants her hands on her hips and the further she leans in toward him, the more deferential his expression becomes and the fewer protesting hand gestures he makes. Ten minutes later, we’re tucked into his cab, waving Cheryl and Konra a fond good-bye.

  Save the thirty minutes it takes to check into our hotel, we’re running literally nonstop throughout Singapore. We’ve just left a Mahjong game (another near miss given we had to first convince some very stern-faced elderly people to let us into their private club, then ask them to teach us how to play) but before that we’d found “hell money” in Chinatown, cruised a river in a bumboat, ate pigtail soup, and spoken to a group of young Muslim men about the call of the muezzins outside of Singapore’s largest mosque. We’re now off to try and find some parrot in Little India to tell our fortune, but I get a certain familiar feeling and tug my mother toward a bathroom.

  “Mom,” I whisper from under my stall door, “I need a tampon.”

  “Mia, hello, I haven’t gotten my period in over a year.”

  Oh. She’d mentioned menopause in phone conversations here and there but I guess it didn’t really register.

  “Sorry, I forgot. But, Mom, you seem so . . . normal.”

  “As opposed to what—a lunatic?” she asks, laughing. “And don’t you always carry supplies on you anyway? What if I wasn’t here?”

  We exit the stalls and start washing our hands.

  “I’m not supposed to get my period for another week so I didn’t think I’d need any yet. Now stop lecturing me, and wait, I thought women got horrible hot flashes and were really cranky when they’re going through menopause. Sarah told me that she called 911 because she thought she was dying and the medic told her to take a cold shower and then call them back, remember?”

  “I’m not lecturing you, I just really don’t like being your pack mule. Now I know how my mother felt. Last time they traveled, your aunt Vivian kept asking Bubbie to carry things for her—she hated to carry a purse—and Bub got so fed up with her that in the middle of a busy street she stopped and snapped, ‘Buy your own damn purse!’ So . . . carry your own damn tampons. And PowerBars. Now, about menopause, yes, I did get hot flashes, and yes, they feel like you’re being burned alive. Thank God they passed after six months.”

  “Is it weird? I mean . . . do you feel any different?” I ask, a little shyly.

  Talking to her about menopause feels strange; I think of menopausal women as a lot older than my mom is. I know she’s fifty, but she doesn’t feel “older.” Or at least she didn’t—maybe that’ll be changing soon.

  “Different as in have I gone through some sort of big spiritual transition? No. I know it’s a lot harder for some women, emotionally and physically, but, aside from the hot flashes, it hasn’t been a big deal.”

  “Well, you always said you didn’t want more kids, and since that’s the main thing that goes away with menopause I guess it wouldn’t matter too much.”

  “Mmmhhh,” she says absently, blotting her lipstick and checking in the mirror to make sure it’s evenly applied. Something about her demeanor suddenly says that the conversation’s over.

  I’m an adrenaline junkie; it takes a lot to make me feel like I am truly firing on all cylinders. Today was hands-down one of the most unforgettable, exhilarating, and exhausting days of my life. Every single sense, skill, and faculty was going full-tilt, challenged under a delicious pressure. And, hey, any nation that fines you $500 for spitting or not flushing a toilet and canes you for writing graffiti is my kind of place: clean sidewalks, clean bathrooms with real toilets, and respect for architecture.

  I’m recovering from our final sprint to the legendary Raffles Hotel, where everyone in the group is drinking Singapore Slings, our final food scavenge. Thank God they don’t fine you for public idiocy. To avoid losing points for being late, I ran the last half-mile with a heavy backpack, wild-eyed, beet-red, and desperate. I’m in okay shape but I’ve never run half a mile in my life, even empty-handed.

  Mia’s chattering away with the other teams in the rattan chair beside me as I admire my surroundings. Dating to the late 1880s, Raffles has been restored to its original 1915 decor, which is colonial plantation with a little bit of Eiffel (cast-iron gazebo and veranda). It has a grand literary tradition, featuring guests such as Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, and Somerset Maugham (who spent his days here drinking and eavesdropping for material to put into his stories).

  It’s one of the few places we’ve been that I actually remember from my crazy-making, be-prepared-for-every-country cramming before departure. I lean toward Mia to share that the last tiger hunted in Singapore was shot under a billiard table in this hotel when I overhear her informing a teammate that it’s too bad we missed the sharks because she loved swimming with the stingrays in—

  “Belize?!” I stammer. “When were you in Belize?”

  Mia turns to me with an “oops” look on her face. “Wellll,” she says sheepishly. “During junior year spring break, with Graham. I thought you’d get mad at me for going out of the country with my boyfriend, so I never told you.” She pauses. “Then I never told you because I thought you’d think I was silly for waiting so long to tell you.”

  I’m actually not bothered, I’m amused, which surprises her more than me.

  “I wouldn’t have gotten mad. Hey, Belize is a lot better than Miami Beach.”

  “Really?”

  “You were over eighteen and you paid for it.”

  “Mom, come on, like that always matters.”

  “Yes, but even if I did get mad, isn’t it better to just be honest?”

  “Yeah . . . sometimes,” she concurs. “I ju
st hate getting lectured.”

  “Sometimes what you call a lecture is just giving my opinion, I’m entitled to it. So you listen to it and then do what you want anyway. That’s at least honest. We’re both big girls, we don’t have to always like each other’s choices. God knows you let me know when you’re mad about something I do. It’s just not called a lecture when a daughter does it.”

  She thinks about this. “That’s actually a good point. Which is probably unfair.”

  “Probably?”

  She smiles and shrugs in agreement, then returns to the group conversation.

  Our conversation makes me realize that not once on this trip have I done what I always used to do: catalog my travel experiences into sound bites in my head, even as they were happening, so I could share them with my mother. Which sends my rocket ship of a day into an instant nosedive. Because my mom and I haven’t communicated in two years.

  It’s the great unspoken on this trip, and in my life in general. My relationship with her has had its ups and downs since I was a teen, but this is the first sustained disconnect between us. Some of it is my very American expectations and approach to life clashing with her more European mind-set and habits, some of it basic personality differences; mostly it’s an accumulation of hurts and misunderstandings over time that has made both of us stubborn and oversensitive.

  It’s extremely painful, so I avoid it. Not that I succeed at it. Your mother is in your bones. My mother’s absence is a constant presence, like the dark side of the moon—cold, dark, and hidden but always there behind the bright, smiling face the world sees, the other half that’s part of my whole.

  In the wake of Come Back, I’ve spoken with thousands of women about their mother-daughter relationship and I’ve seen that wound leap into a woman’s face more often than I can count, just at the mere mention of their mother. While there are certainly a lot of younger women with a broken or strained relationship with their mother, I’ve noticed it seems more common in my own age group, boomers.

  I’ve talked to successful, confident women whose faces instantly downshift when I ask about their mother, reminded of the hole in their heart that nothing else can ever fill. Whatever the reason for our mother’s absence, oh, how it waylays us. For me it’s sweaters. My mom’s a big knitter; a yarn shop can send me fetal.

  “It’s like the flotsam and jetsam of my life,” our friend Tracey lamented over lunch in Manhattan one day. “No matter what road I’m on, something reminding me of my mother will show up out of the blue and I’ll trip on it, and it just tears my heart out. It sends me whirling back to the place of when we were happy, and wondering where that went.”

  Even something wonderful will sucker-punch you. Tracey stood in line for hours to see Amma (an Indian woman known to have hugged millions, a powerhouse of love). The second Amma hugged Tracey, she broke down. For the same reason I start to cry at the end of a yoga class when we’re lying on our backs, in the dark, eyes closed, and I feel the yoga teacher’s fingers caress my forehead.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nepal

  Kaleidoscope

  I never imagined it possible for a city of eight hundred thousand to be lit almost entirely by candlelight, but downtown Kathmandu would be pitch-black if it wasn’t for the flickering light emanating from smoking wicks.

  My mom and I are silent as we wander through narrow and uneven streets that are half-paved and half-dirt, all of them largely empty and fairly quiet. Ancient and ornate buildings of brick and wood jut out above run-down storefronts advertising Internet services and money exchanges on faded plastic or handwritten signs. The scattered pools of light exaggerate shadows, and it feels dreamlike. It would almost be romantic if you didn’t know the candles are necessitated by an extreme lack of electricity. Considering we’re in Thamel, the main tourist district, I can only imagine the total darkness many Nepalese must live in once the sun sets.

  We suddenly hear, “Madam, madam!” and two girls emerge from the dark and come running toward us, smiling and out of breath.

  “Beautiful purses, look madam, you buy for your friends.”

  They’re maybe nine or ten, with high cheekbones, jet-black hair, and shining brown eyes, thrusting small woven purses at us. One wears a man’s button-down shirt three sizes too big for her and both have ill-fitting shoes, but they are fresh-faced, their nails trimmed and clean. They speak excellent English and are surprisingly bold, though extremely polite. The girls clearly aren’t homeless but it’s still unsettling to see them wandering the streets alone at night.

  As we continue down the road, my mom stops in front of a store displaying small paintings filled with intricate geometric patterns, vibrant colors, and figures of gods and folklore heroes. Her nose is nearly pressed against the glass as she examines the stunning detail and delights in the gold leaf glinting in the candlelight.

  “These are thangka paintings!” she says, excited. “Buddhists used these in meditation for centuries. See how they’re painted on scrolls? That was so monks could roll them up and transport them. I’ve always wanted to see these up close—look, some of those lines are painted with a single brush hair.”

  Because she was an art history major, thangkas don’t excite her for the twenty-five points they’re worth as a scavenge. Much of my childhood had been spent being shuttled from one museum to another. My favorite exhibitions were ones that came with headsets, which meant I could rest while my mom received, rather than gave, history lessons.

  It’s also true that when I finally took her advice and enrolled in an art history class my junior year, I loved it and took three more after that. It’s probably a healthy part of individuation, but I always rebelled against my mom’s suggestions of things I would or wouldn’t like. I think “You just don’t understand” and “You don’t know me” are refrains programmed into all teenagers, and it takes time to grow out of an autopilot pattern.

  My train of thought is interrupted when, out of nowhere, a group of about twenty men burst onto the street, waving their arms wildly, spinning in circles, and dancing. A cacophony of sound accompanies them, the jingling of tambourines, the banging of pots and pans.

  “Is today a holiday?” my mom asks a shopkeeper, who’s leaning against the doorframe of a dark and empty convenience store. “Were they at a wedding?”

  “Oh, no,” he laughs. “They’re just happy.”

  My mom and I look at each other and shrug. Three more men come hollering along as we leave and then I get it.

  “It’s the elections, Mom, remember? The Maoists just won.”

  Nepalese politics in a (very tiny) nutshell: Nepal was traditionally a monarchy in which the royals kept themselves rich by starving—sometimes quite literally—their countrymen. Violent insurrection, often led by the Maoists, began in the nineties, but it wasn’t until 2001 that things really escalated. That June, the prince murdered his parents and eight other family members before turning the gun on himself in a drunken rage. Years of bloody civil war between various government forces and Maoist rebels ensued, leaving thousands of people dead and the population desperate for peace. Even the people who voted against the Maoists are hopeful. Anything’s better than what they had; everyone’s sick of fighting.

  The young men are gone as quickly as they came, and the streets are quiet when we reach Thamel House Restaurant, a landmark establishment that could have been dreamt up by Lewis Carroll after a heavy dose of laudanum. Originally a house, it is a candlelit maze of dark rooms, narrow, tilted staircases, and low ceilings. The stairs are uneven and creaky, laughter floats from various darkened rooms. We’re led up a final flight of stairs to the attic, a small room with a low, vaulted ceiling, burgundy carpet, and gold and brown floor cushions.

  “This place is so cool!” I whisper to my mom, who looks less than thrilled.

  “It feels like an opium den.”

  I think it feels much like what we’ve seen of Nepal so far: dark and mysterious with a hint of the surreal and magical.<
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  Last night’s spell is broken the moment our taxi leaves the gates of our hotel to inch into the jammed traffic. It feels as if we’ve left the castle for the land where the heroine has gone off to find the magic elixir to save her kingdom and hasn’t yet returned.

  It’s strange to be on a dirt road in the middle of a city of two million people. Either side of it is scattered with chunks of concrete, debris, piles of garbage, what looks like a sewage trench, and skinny dogs flopped on their sides in the heat.

  Nepal is one of the five poorest nations on earth, with a 50 percent literacy rate, a precarious infrastructure, severe environmental issues, a fifty-eight-year average lifespan, and a large number of malnourished, homeless children.

  Five of whom are out the window on our right, scavenging on top of a block-long hill of smoking garbage. They’re barefoot, only partly clothed, and two of them can’t be more than five. One is trying to yank something out of a dog’s mouth. Two women in deep-yellow saris with water buckets walk past the children as if they’re invisible.

  On our left is the kind of slum I haven’t seen since my family got lost on a trip to Tijuana in the sixties. Dwellings are cobbled together from corrugated metal, branches, rope, and blue tarps. A few kids tease and play; one sits listlessly beside a group of men squatting on their haunches, staring silently at passing traffic. They’re called sukumbasi, the landless population.

  But even among the heartbreak on this long road, there is beauty. Small shrines on every block are dusted by the faithful with orange and pink powders, fathers and sons stop to leave offerings of flower petals and move on. A mother and daughter in pink tunics over lavender pants emerge from the slum, stepping over trash, dogs. Women wrapped in vermilion, marigold, and peacock-blue saris weave through traffic with babies on their hips. When women proclaim their place in the world with hot-pink scarves trailing from their shoulders as they walk beside stinking garbage heaps, beauty is a weapon, a refusal.