I have many half finished essays sitting in google docs so I realized I should just post excerpts because who wants to read the full 5 page versions anyway? Here’s three paragraphs about why I love my Mom, my Nana and my female friends.
I call my mom every Sunday so I can say bag (Minnesotan) aloud without any reactions. How nice it is to slip back into your home dialect. Like taking a nap at your dads house, where for some reason even the sheets smell more like home, though you use the same detergent at yours.
Every time I call her, she demands “the dish” which always consists of: whoever I’ve been seeing lately, the drama with my friends in my new city, the drama with my friends at home. Then she tells me of a distant relative that was diagnosed with cancer, or got married or passed away. She reminds me that it’s Rose’s Birthday or I remind her that it’s Sloan’s. We pause to send a text, we tell them we will call them soon, too.
I hate to admit that I am only half listening as she goes on about the new drug my great aunt is trying. The other half of me is considering the logistics of how my mom stores all of this information, acquires it. The historic (and current) role of women as recorders of their family history, illness, birthdays, deaths, photos, appointments. How many women around the world are on the phone alongside us, sharing the details of the people they love? How far back does the chain of phone calls, the chain of information go? I called Lilli, who called Abby... Mom calls Nana, who called her sister… Women expressing their love, concern, and disdain through information passing. It’s one of the things I admire the most about us.