Jewels for my Mother

When we visited our friends H. and A. a week ago, A. showed me a tiny paper ornament that looked woven but was actually origami. I didn't count the faces, but it was perhaps an octagon. She and I spent many many hours in our teens making things together - out of cloth, paper, beads, clay - and it was wonderful to wander around her house and look at her projects -- handmade paper lampshades on twig frameworks; glass bead ornaments in a sunny window; funny furry costumes; papier-maché masks; beautiful aquariums; the patchwork bags she and her mother were making for Christmas presents from chintz upholstery samples -- while A. gave me a running commentary on each one. A.'s mother, now in her eighties, was there too, still bright-eyed and lovely, enveloping me in the same wonderful hug I remembered from my youth. "Are you making anything these days? A. asked me. "Not much except for cooking,"I answered. "I'm writing, and I find it doesn't leave much time for other things." But already my hands were itching.

After I got home I began thinking about that little ornament, and wondering how it had been made. I began searching on the web for modular origami polyhedra instructions (not for the first time - I knew I'd seen some books and diagrams before) and sure enough there were plenty on the web. A night or two later, I got out some paper and began folding. The little shapes above are called Toshie's Jewels: they're pyramidal polygons constructed from three identical Sonube units folded from squares of paper and then locked together. From these same units you can construct large polyhedra, for your math class or for ornamenting your home, or just for fun. But something about these little, simple solids delights me: the way a few little flat sheets of paper become something so firm and beautiful. When I can get to the Japanese paper store later this week, I'll try making something larger and more complex.

My mother loved making things, and whether I was alone or with my friends like A., she always helped us with our projects or thought up new ones. So many times this week, as I thought about these paper projects or discovered a new design, I had the familiar impulse to pick up the phone and call her. Of course, I can't. I've gotten used to this by now, and in my mind, I tell her what I'm doing anyway. But today something else happened.

I was cleaning my closet, putting away the last of the summer things and getting out the heaviest of the winter things, when I came across a bag and opened it. Inside were two of my mother's leather purses, which I'd brought with me after I sorted her clothes and possessions. I sat down on the bed and opened them. One was empty. But the other one - her everyday bag - still held a pouch with her sunglasses in it, a pillbox, her wallet. It was a shock to snap open the wallet and see her driver's license with her photo on it, her credit cards, her insurance papers. The first flap of the transparent pockets held my high school graduation photo. Further down, there was a little picture of me with my white graduation dress, and another school picture, which I'd always known was a favorite of hers, from fourth grade.

But under all of this was a faded Polaroid, with the edges folded under. On the back it read: "Beth with her Christmas cards 1966." I looked at it and the tears immediately started to fall. The picture was taken in our old kitchen; I'm holding a brayer and the first print, probably, from a linoleum block. And as in all the other pictures she had chosen to carry around close to her all those years, I look very very happy.

What was making me cry wasn't the sentimentality of opening my mother's wallet and seeing these glimpses of her personal life again. It was the in-rushing of sudden, total awareness of what she had seen about me, and precisely what she had given. She saw very early that creativity and learning new things were what made me happy, and she had done everything she could to encourage, affirm, and enable that in my life, often at the expense of her own desires and her own creativity. I chose a life that allowed me to pursue this, and eventually it took me far away from where my parents lived; I chose that life rather than having children who would have been their grandchildren. We talked about this in an emotional conversation during the last year of her life: me in tears apologizing for the cost of my choices, and asking if she was terribly disappointed in them, and her firm answer that she was very proud of me, and that what she and my father had always wanted the most was for me to do what made me happy.

My mother's giving was not just for me - she did it for many other people as well. But what I saw today, that I had never realized with such force -- and perhaps couldn't have seen before reaching midlife myself -- is that the endpoint of creativity is not necessarily the painting or the book, but coming to understand that this is the life force, and that seeing and affirming it -- however it is trying to come out and be expressed in other people's lives -- is one of the greatest gifts you can give them. My mother was a creativity bodhisattva.

Right around the time this picture was taken, she found a set of paper polyhedral patterns in a magazine and ordered them before Christmas. They weren't origami, they were more like boxes with interlocking tabs, and I remember that we transferred the patterns and cut out many paper ornaments that year for our tree. It was great fun.

I didn't shed too many tears today, because I realized I wasn't sad, but happy; the tears were from gratitude. I've been reluctant to write some of these things about my mother because I realize I am unusually fortunate in who she was, while knowing that many readers of this blog have not had the same experience in their families of origin; for some it was exactly the opposite and caused great suffering. It makes me uncomfortable to talk about a richness I was privileged to have in my life. But it's also nothing I would ever want or be able to hoard; I see that it's terribly important to recognize and try to share whatever I learned. Creativity can be anything, from having babies to cooking meals for our families to growing pots of parsley in a winter windowsill. The point is not to arrive at some place of success or fame, but to see where that spark comes from in our spirits, and allow room for the jewels that want so much to come forth out of that place.

Comments

[Chris Clarke]

I love this.

And the photo.

[ruth]

its so lovely to hear you honour your mother and the gift she gave you in this way, beth.

[Jim Murdoch]

You have reminded me of my childhood, at least one aspect of it. I clearly recall as a boy or perhaps eight or so running home from school to catch Robert Harbin's origami programme on the TV. Harbin, better known as a magician, was the first President of the British Origami Society. He was the also first Westerner to use the word origami for this art-form.

It reminds me how much I used my hands back then – I was always drawing or making things – and how little I use them now. I even got in a state yesterday trying to put the light on the Xmas tree and my wife had to rescue me. I really have become quite physically inept.

It's all I suppose to do with priorities. Since buying my first ZX81 about twenty-five years ago, for better or worse, computers have taken over my life; we currently have five in the house. I don't regret giving up the other things, it took me months to finish a painting for example, and I was never going to be very good, besides work has dominated my life for years, so the wise thing overall was to use what spare time I had for what matters the most and that has to be my writing; everything else was a pastime and time passes far too quickly on its own these days without looking for things to fill it.

I can still remember how to make an origami water bomb but that's it. The frogs and cranes have all gone.

[Lorianne]

Oh, Beth. This is simply lovely. The post, the pictures, the sentiment: the whole multifaceted thing.

[Theriomorph]

Yes, a jewel of an essay. Thank you, Beth. Lovely and loving. Such a sense, reading, how we pass on the loving gifts we're given, too - this post a gift from your mother to you to your readers, in a direct and generous line. You do look so happy in that photo!

[Martine]

Your last two posts have touched me in a very personal way. I want to print them and keep them in a notebook.

I admire and envy the way you manage to get to the essence of things, with clarity and emotion but without sentimentality.

And I LOVE that smiley picture of you!

[kaycie]

You were very lucky, indeed. My mother, always with the best of intentions, tended to be too overbearing to support my creativity, always wanting to point me in the way she thought I was most skilled or showed the most ability.

As a mother of three, I conciously have tried not to inhibit my children in their natural interests. I know without a doubt that I have been less than perfectly successful, but I also know I've done well enough that most of their endeavors are their own. I support them as best I can. I hope someday they look back at their childhood with such gratitude and such love.

Beautiful and very touching post.

[rr]

Oh Beth. What a beautiful essay. Never be afraid to share the beautiful :-) There is so much to learn.

[bobbi]

thank you...

[Lucy]

Truly beautiful, and full of chiming truth. Thank you.

[dale]

Those of us not so fortunate need all the more to hear about mothers who were a support and a joy to their children. It's true that we sometimes envy how simple and straightforward your grief is, and know that ours will never be like that. But -- especially if we're parents -- we need to know that it can unfold differently.

[Dave]

There you go with your reds and greens again! It's always Christmas around here, isn't it? But you made me cry, goddamnit.

I agree with Rachel and Dale: we need more narratives of happiness out there. Many of the most common ones make piss-poor templates: happiness through competitive achievement, for example, or happiness through obedience. Worst of all is the fact that ultimate happiness is so commonly understood to be perpetual bliss, whether in the hear-and-now or forestalled until after death. Pernicious notions. Thanks for challenging all that in such a subtle and effective manner.

I think I know exactly how origami was invented...

Fed up with staring
at a blank page, I fold
a paper airplane.

[Kat]

Lovely and wonderful.

(and I covet those glasses, by the way.)

[marja-leena]

Oh, Beth, again. Beautiful, moving and making me think of my parents (I was lucky too). I agree with everyone's comments here.

[pohanginapete]

Yes, beautiful and moving, Beth. And so much is so familiar — in many respects you could have been writing about my own mother. The only point about which I'd like to hope you might be wrong is in the claim you're unusually fortunate in who she was: perhaps you (we) are indeed rich and privileged to have had such (a) mum(s) (crikey that's clumsy; sorry), but I hope that such good fortune is shared by many others. I suspect it's a forlorn hope, but it's clear from some of the comments that what you've written so beautifully here is both affirmation and encouragement for those trying to pass this kind of richness to their own children. Thanks Beth.

[diana christine]

This essay is a beautiful gift to your mother, and what a lovely gift to give at Christmastime.... Thank you for letting us all see.

[joan]

i am one of the unfortunate ones when it comes to mothers encouraging creativity but i thank you for writing what you did. you have shown me that i've been holding back from being as creative as i was as a child in order to hide that side from my mother as a sort of punishment to her. reading this piece was a release for me in the best possible way! thanks, sincerely.

[Patricia Bralley]

I have a friend who says the thing about your mother is, "There is someone always watching you." ... someone always on your side ... again, as you note, if your are lucky. And many of us have been blessed with this mother's love.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. My mom is 82 now and her physical heart is failing. Your words are yet another wakeup call - time is ticking. Enjoy the moment.

[Dick]

If I knew in advance of my passing that my children might commemorate me as movingly, it would certainly take the edge off oblivion! How blessed you were & what a strength to carry forward.

[Natalie d'Arbeloff]

Beth, what they all said. I share all of the feelings you describe so well and in many ways, my mother was like yours and I too am endlessly grateful to her and to my father. I love the photo of you, smiling with all your heart, so confident, so completely present in that moment.
The origami jewels are beautiful too.

[Jean]

This has been with me since I read it yesterday, and I too want to say that, as someone who doesn't have such memories, I value and am moved all the more by the sharing of yours. I don't suppose that as a young teenager you were smiling and confident at every moment - who is? - , but this photo of you entirely present, happy and absorbed in a moment of creativity is indeed a jewel - I'm so happy that you found it.