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

by Claire Fontaine

  There’s a scene in that movie where Whoopi Goldberg’s character is first shown her room in an abbey. It’s all white and utterly bare but for one chair, one desk, one cup, one bowl, one spoon, one bed, one pillow, one outfit. I can still actually feel the elation I had when I saw it. The utter simplicity of the room, and the life that went with it, felt like a soul stripped bare, and my soul gave me a kick in response, saying Pay attention, notice! How it feels to see stillness and honesty in a place that would elicit the same in the character. Thankfully, we were at home, because out I blurted, “Yes! One cup, one bowl! I love it, one dress, one chair! I want that life!” We all wondered if there was something in the takeout.

  With nothing more than a simple instinct—and trust—I created a snowy cocoon of stillness I must wake in and return to every single day. I wasn’t sure why I wanted the walls bare, but for once just the wanting was enough.

  It may be minor to someone used to always knowing exactly what they want and why and how and when. But to a woman who spent a good part of her life accommodating, protecting, living years where I was authentic in my mothering but in no other part of my life, it was no small thing at all.

  I slip quietly out of bed and head to the sun-washed kitchen. I set out a brioche and Chrystelle’s grandmother’s thick homemade apricot preserves and sit down to a view I’d only find in coffee-table books at home: a sea of medieval terra-cotta rooftops beneath a piercingly blue sky. If I look left, it’s nothing but a chattering wall of green, thanks to a flock of big, boisterous magpies. With their natty tuxedo coats, they dot the tree like fat, sassy penguins tossed from a wedding party for drinking too much. They holler and hop around, making branches dip under their weight, entertaining me while I eat.

  In the yard below them, the tops of two once-white lawn chairs poke out of the tall overgrowth that has swallowed them. A set of French doors behind them is a still life of broken panes, cords of twisted ivy and broken boards. They belong to an eighteenth-century town house, long abandoned; the stone is blackened, the windows boarded up with long-rotted planks. But you can see those ubiquitous blue shutters behind them, a color unchanged in centuries.

  It’s a beautiful place, even in its decay. Voluminous silk skirts and petticoats no doubt rustled up a storm in there a few centuries ago. After an often-bloody civil war here between papists and those loyal to the French Revolution, Avignon was finally integrated into France, just in time for both the Red Terror and the White Terror.

  I think of Le Brun, whose wealth and association with the queen made her a marked woman during the French Revolution. She barely had time to grab her daughter, switch their satin gowns for the servant’s clothes, smear their faces dirty, and make a dash for the border in a cheesy carriage, sitting knee-to-knee with a reeking drunkard.

  Were the wealthy women behind those blue shutters safe, when even smelling of expensive perfume could cost you your head? How far to save one’s life, what kind of cleverness, or ruthlessness? Once that was over, did the women hold salons of the old guard, or welcome the new, embrace the romantic over the rational? Were mothers and daughters split on these issues, like the rational royalist Le Brun and her romantic and emotional daughter, Julie?

  Once she returned from exile, what went through Le Brun’s head as her carriage rolled over the very spot where her friends’ heads had fallen into a blood-soaked basket before being picked up by the hair and held high for the cheering crowd? Perhaps she’d see Madame du Barry’s lace scarf round a shop girl’s neck. An artist selects her subject’s clothes; she would know it among thousands, Belgian lace whose every detail she rendered. Ten years later, she’d recognize the scent of a one-of-a-kind perfume stolen from the queen’s boudoir. That’s a beautiful plot point, I muse to myself, recognizing Marie Antoinette’s personal perfume on someone a decade later, but, wait, not on a shopgirl, on another noblewoman, an old friend of the queen—that has much more intriguing story possibilities.

  My mind wanders to perfumer Annick Goutal’s answer when she was asked what was her greatest luxury. To be warm, she said. I just loved that answer. Warmth. Not something you have or do, something you feel in your bones. She died of breast cancer not long after that, at only forty-two. I wonder if knowing her time here was limited brought a realization that one needs so little, really, but it’s that little that is true luxury.

  For me, this is that kind of luxury, this silent, sitting-still-ness, and the inner portal it opens, like a train window full of prairie sunrise, a view to world after world, in my mind’s eye. How wonderful to let my imagination play again, without simultaneously thinking of everything I should be doing or forgot to do or don’t want to do. Scenes and characters, images and dialogue, are quietly back, effortlessly and unsummoned, like flowers blooming in a dead garden.

  I’m almost tingling with the sense of curiosity and delight that only writing brings me. How did I ever think I could continue writing without stillness, silence? Well, I didn’t. I simply stopped writing. Was it a way to keep myself busy to avoid any midlife self-reckoning? Or is it nothing that complicated, just simply the lifelong habit of an undisciplined, too-busy mind?

  Either way, even now I can sniff the beginnings of “Okay, that was a nice few moments, thank you trees and birds and God, time to get up and get going, there’s so much to do and think and ask and say, and why didn’t I do this or get that or give more, give less, blog more, blog less, call my brother, find that earring, and Paul is crazy, the studs under the east bedroom window are sinking.” A mind like a shark—swim or die.

  Change happens in the small moments, when a sliver of light finds its way through the cracks. Until I did inner work the first time around, I had no idea how much discipline it takes to stay conscious and present, to put in the kind of every-moment-of-the-day work it takes to change your way of being. I taped affirmation cards everywhere, made Wheel of Life Charts on which I wrote down every single thing I did in fifteen-minute increments for three entire weeks (that’ll shatter any illusions you have about how you spend your time, take my word for it). I asked myself a thousand times a day before acting—and, miraculously, speaking—What am I creating with this choice right now?

  So what new choices am I willing to make, right now, to support this essential part of me? Same thing I used to do, set an intention, right now. Four hours a day in silence, minimum, with my notebook or laptop.

  It feels good to be going back to tools that have worked for me in the past. Simple things but hard to actually do, like keeping commitments to myself, choosing from intention rather than feelings, excuses, or circumstances. But if I could do it before, for several years, I can do it again. I weel do eet again.

  I’m not religious but hymnal music moves me like little else. It’s stirring, the deep hum of collective voices, the way they seem to vibrate within stone walls and floors, up through your feet and into your bones. When I left our apartment for an evening alone on the bluff, I didn’t expect to hear singing coming from inside Notre-Dame-des-Dômes, any more than I expected that toward the end of the church’s vespers service my face would be tearstained.

  A hand comes and rests lightly on my shoulder, and I look up to see a nun gazing softly at me. Embarrassed, I smile and apologize but she just looks kindly at me without saying anything. She radiates such calm and compassion that I don’t feel compelled to brush away my tears or leave. They probably see a lot of this here, people in varying states of emotional rawness. After a minute, she tells me gently that the church is closing but that I am welcome back at any time.

  I smile at her in silent thanks before walking outside and finding an open spot to sit on the bluff. In a world where we put up so many barriers, where we carve out different times and places for even the most fundamental of human emotions and experiences, spaces like churches give the gift of sanctuary, a place where unburdening yourself doesn’t burden someone else.

  It reminds me of a trip to Paris I took several years ago, when I’d stopped int
o one of the city’s many churches. I was wandering through the side alcoves when I noticed a man I’d passed on the way in, a nondescript, middle-aged businessman. He was kneeling in a red velvet pew beneath a large oil painting of a saint, his hands pressed against his forehead in prayer as he quietly sobbed.

  His back was to me, so I stayed a second, wondering why he was crying, and feeling badly for initially dismissing him as a boring older man. At seventeen, seeing a grown man sob was startling and uncomfortable.

  I don’t think I’d feel that same trepidation today. I wouldn’t focus on my discomfort, or feel the need to do something, like I did then. Pain or sadness aren’t repellents, they’re a normal part of life, and shying away from them denies you a chance to deeply connect with, or assist, someone else. Even with everyone blogging and tweeting, I think families and individuals still privately suffer more taboo experiences like addiction, abuse, or mental illness—which only further contributes to all three.

  I’m sure that’s why of all the places I’ve visited Nepal stayed with me the most. I was fascinated and unsettled by how openly and unceremoniously death, grief, abuse, and poverty were displayed. I think often of the kathe children, how they roamed the city streets, competing with starving dogs for scraps of food in garbage heaps. Meeting the kids at Rabin’s orphanage was all the more powerful because we’d had three days of seeing firsthand the fate they’d been spared from.

  I remember falling asleep that night thinking about a short story I read in college by Ursula Le Guin called, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Omelas is a beautiful Utopian city with a happy and prosperous population, save the fact that a nameless and naked child lives beneath the city, abandoned and locked in a basement. Even one kind word or gesture toward him would end Omelas; that is the balance required, the misery of one for the happiness of all.

  The story stayed with me for days, not for the reason my philosophy teacher assigned it—an allegory weighing the benefits of utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number of people)—but because Le Guin so vividly described the boy. I actually had dreams about him, crouched in a dark corner, a belly stretched tight from malnutrition, and skin scabbed over from living in his own filth.

  The story affected me because I knew it wasn’t fictitious, and it came back to me in Nepal because that boy was literally staring me in the eye. In America, far fewer kids live in such abject poverty, but millions of boys and girls—here and around the world—live equally bleak emotional lives. Often in plain sight, too; when families and communities willfully ignore abuse, they re-create Omelas by keeping peace for all at the expense of one. Although “peace” being kept is debatable; one need only look at crime and drug statistics to see that abused youth don’t go quietly into the night.

  I wrote my first book to help give voice to survivors of abuse, and, for two years following its release, I loved hearing other people’s stories, sharing my own with lawmakers and policy-influencers, learning from child therapists, scientists, social workers, and child advocates. Child abuse can be a heavy field to be immersed in, and I was right in sensing I needed a break when I moved to New York. But I deliberately continued veering away from it, because I felt that someone my age shouldn’t enjoy child-abuse conferences as much as happy hour with friends. I thought I’d regret not having “enough fun” in my twenties, although I’d often left speaking engagements on cloud nine. Interesting that my mom got herself stuck because she thought someone her age “should” own their own home; we both let numbers create false rules and benchmarks for us rather than making choices dependent on where we were at personally, not chronologically.

  Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning is enduringly popular for a reason I clearly failed to grasp: creating meaning, rather than pursuing pleasure, leads to a happy life. Fun and happiness are by no means mutually exclusive, nor do they always equal each other. I do want to return to that field, although I have no idea when, in what capacity, or how it’ll ultimately look for me: a full-time career, volunteer work, helping change laws, creating public awareness of its prevalence and long-term effects and cost.

  I never in a million years thought I’d see being abused positively (particularly before I’d healed from it) but there’s no changing the fact that it happened, and I’ve come to accept and even appreciate how it’s affected my outlook on life. It added a complexity that makes the world both more beautiful and uglier than I think I would otherwise see it, like increasing the contrast in a photograph so the darks get darker and the brights even brighter.

  Trusting Aware Happy Loving Authentic Powerful Compassionate Serene

  These words overlay the pale, nude woman in the lush mountain meadow that represents me; she’s squarely in the middle of my vision map. Five months after that morning on the beach I feel these qualities in myself, or at least the possibility of them, in a way that had long eluded me.

  To the right is a picture of a bottle of champagne and people celebrating, a symbol of letting go of my “waiting for the other shoe to drop” mentality, which has prevented me from celebrating much in my life. Having experienced weeks of pleasure with Mia, and alone, just because, has been new for me, and I’ve loved every minute of it. There are always other shoes in the air—that’s life; and they will drop; no one escapes that. I’ve come to think that it’s just ducky to celebrate for no other reason than that right now, at this moment, no other shoe has dropped.

  Near a photo of me are images of authors, books, and women I admire, including Le Brun and Jane Austen. The words “love in action” are superimposed upon a woman at a laptop. I know I’ll return to fiction, with great joy, and with no less commitment to my purpose to create awareness. I want my words to matter as much as entertain.

  Thanks to Mia, I have a Just a Matter of Good! section (“Mother, where are your hobbies, things you enjoy?”): knitting, hiking, fencing, movies, things I love to do but haven’t made time for.

  My home area consists of a table full of food and loved ones under a huge tree surrounded by gardens, a huge room full of windows with only a big, champagne-colored velvet sofa and chair, a broad glass coffee table and reading lamps, a desk looking out on a dewy, green view. And a gorgeous hotel room overlooking a big city, for feeling at home wherever I’m at.

  I’m just never going to be a very surrendery person. I’m a live wire, for better or worse, so I’m making my health and wellness section about “want to,” not “should.” There’s a small image of a woman meditating on a mountain peak, and lots of big images of runners (I’ve never run a block in my life, but I want to), hikers, and outdoor athletes.

  A big pair of hands, palms open, with the word Give anchors the bottom in what I call my G section (God, Gratitude, Give, Grace). I want to broaden my concept of authenticity. Being true to who I really am is obviously essential, but without acknowledging the web of relationships I live in, it can also become an excuse for self-absorption, for seeing others solely through the filter of my needs and wants. Which can lead to the kind of disconnect I have with my mother.

  I’ve spent a lot of time here thinking about how we raise our daughters, within the context of culture and history, particularly how my generations shifted the focus from “we” to “me.” I’m not so sure it was a good thing. Ask a person who’s been trashed, hurt, or humiliated on someone else’s blog how they feel about the writer’s need to “speak their truth.” Being authentic needn’t mean hewing only to our true wants and needs; relationships, and just living in the world, require that we compromise and make sacrifices. And sometimes we do want the approval of others; it’s sometimes called admiration and respect. And we often earn it by doing something we don’t want to do but we consciously choose to do for a higher good. It’s when we aren’t conscious about our choices and intentions regarding those compromises and sacrifices that we end up crying in alleys, filled with regret. If I’d have set a conscious intention to create closeness with my mother (and forced myself to th
ink a bit before speaking or writing), I would still be speaking with her.

  That balance between authenticity and relationship is what having a child teaches you. I never authentically liked wiping up barf, singing “The Wheels on the Bus” a thousand times, or chasing an addicted teen all over tarnation, but I knew what I was in for when I signed up. I made those choices consciously, and oh what a joyful sacrifice. Had I but been equally conscious and committed about some of the other choices in my life, I’m sure I would have found equal satisfaction and meaning.

  I’ve included images of mothers, daughters, family, my girlfriends, Paul. There’s a section for my relationship with Mia. It’s a collage of sunsets, gardens, travel, women having fun together, art, books, a beautiful home for her to visit, a bedroom in her favorite colors; our shared values for our relationship are superimposed: Trust Adventure Art Love Respect Vulnerability Honesty Communication Celebration. And a picture of a big ear, for listening; so I can be a better mother and friend to her.

  We’ve become so much closer this summer than I could have imagined. One of the most valuable things about a close relationship between mother and daughter is the degree of safety you feel with each other. It allows for a kind of vulnerability that can take the relationship to a level unique among all your relationships. It also allows for the kind of accountability so many of us find difficult, but without which resentment and emotional dishonesty build and trust diminishes.

  This trip has also made me realize that the depth and breadth of our bond still starts with me. Until I saw how much of my unconscious behavior showed up in Mia—particularly around vulnerability—I’d never realized how powerful an influence I am on her, even as an adult. I saw over and again how the degree to which I was willing to open my heart was the degree to which the relationship expanded and grew more meaningful. Kind of like the Peter Principle for mothers and daughters, only instead of advancing to the level of your incompetency, the relationship advances only to the level of your own emotional inaccessibility. We are role models for our daughters all of our lives.