Shannan and I did a story for Glo in which we asked a number of women we loved (and a few we didn’t know) to tell us what they didn’t know about their mothers until they became adults.
The stories and photographs that resulted from it are really touching. For me, a few were very personal—my aunt, for example, talked about my grandmother. Together, they are pictured above.
For those of you who were worried that modern pharmaceuticals have ruined the unpredictable dynamic of my family, you can rest assured. Not even mood stabilizers could have prevented the emotional meltdown that occurred when the Internet stopped working earlier this afternoon at Tara Knoll (that’s the name of our house, for reals).
The day started out well. My father’s mother came over for lunch. My mother’s mother did not come over, because she is angry at us, as my father explained, “for apparently no f—ing reason.” We had Mexican food from a deli newly discovered by our patriarch, who talks about it like he’s the first non-Mexican person to eat a taco. In the entirety of history. “Have you ever had a quesa-dill-A?” he asked his mother. “Here, try it with some of this green stuff, I think it’s a lime sauce.” (It was salsa).
At around 3pm, everyone left for a regimented exercise routine- running, hiking in a small enclosed space, building barricades so cars can’t come down the driveway, ruining the landscaping, etc. When we re-convened, I opened up my computer to start doing some work, but I couldn’t connect to the Internet. Annoyed already that the only thing I could find to eat was raw almonds and a few frozen sugar cookies, I started to get a little testy.
