Lesson from Mom

Ok, so I wanted to write a post about my mom, as she is visiting and she rocks out. I started a list of things to post about her called "My Mom Taught Me That," but it became so long, so hefty in its mom-wisdom that I had to abandon it altogether, or ya'll would be reading this into next WEEK. So I will choose at random just one thing offa this list, and wax prose-etic about that. Ready? Here I go. Throwing metaphoric dart onto list tacked on metaphoric dartboard.

Here's the thing about my mom. She raised all her kiddies to be people who are free to express themselves. All this shit I'm always talking about living one's whole life like it's art? That's because of mom. That's totally a seed planted in all her babies' heads from before we all were a twinkle in her eye. Your aesthetic likes and dislikes are yours. You can live them, express your inner stuff on your outer landscape, don't hide what you feel, it's all valid. These are the messages I was given, and I am so grateful. For a child to be told that they, like everyone else, have an inner artist that just needs a voice- that's powerful stuff. It's freeing on so many levels, I can't even begin to tell you. It also makes for some crazy ass stories.

When my parents got a house, each of us got to control the design of our bedrooms. My brother chose a blood red shag carpet for his room, and a gigantic wallpaper mural of a waterfall to plaster his entire wall. Blood red, and wallpaper mural. You getting this? Fine, my mom said. You gotta be you. My sister chose a Shamrock Shake minty green color carpet with walls to match, with a white canopy bed with gold trim and purple grapes on the duvet cover. Seriously. Shamrock meets Purplesaurus. My mom says hells yeah. Own it, honey. This was not the attitude of an overly permissive mom, who just didn't want to say no to her kids. We didn't demand these things; she set them up this way. "These rooms are yours. You express yourself in them however you wish." This was a very conscious act. With it, she was saying to us- your ideas are valid. Experimentation is good. Being different from others is to be celebrated. I am your parent, and I will make sure you're safe, but your mind, your imagination, your art are always yours.

I remember that she always let me pick out my own clothes. I know there are many out there who think that outward appearance is overly emphasized in our culture, and I agree that it is, but only because the way in which it's emphasized is to stifle creativity, create conformity, and shove people into standards of appearance that have nothing to do with who they are on the inside. So my mom waged a little war on this type of thing by letting me pick out my own clothes and never telling me I looked like an ass. I figured it out. I grew up knowing the difference between looking like an ass and not looking like one just fine. She gave me the space to do that. This DID lead to some unfortunate outfits that are documented in the family photo album, however. For example, when I was aged 2, my favorite t-shirt was one that had a picture of Jimi Hendrix on the front that said "Are You Experienced?" in rainbow letters across the chest. I am seen sporting this shirt in countless photos, with a huge blue denim Gilligan-style hat on my head to complete the ensemble. Strange for a two-year old, perhaps, but I was rockin' it. There was the phase I went through in 5th grade where I would buy white keds and plain sweatshirts and paint the bejeezus out of them, sometimes with graffiti-style words, sometimes with cutesy hearts, and I would wear them everywhere, no matter the occasion. The thing that gets me most about this is that EVERYONE has crazy outfits that they wore or bad haircuts that they had when they were really little, but the difference is, most of ya'll can blame that stuff right on mom. "I can't believe my mom gave me that Dorothy Hamill haircut!" I hear my friends say. "Ohmigod those calico sundresses! My mom made me wear that!" I hear it all the time. I, people, have no one to blame but myself. My mom let me be who I was, and for all my cringey-ness now, it was a beautiful thing. I attribute this parenting tactic with many of the things that are truly a core part of the adult I am now. Namely, I will rock some fashions if I feel like I want to be rockin' them. I am not going to judge myself as too old to wear that, too skinny to wear that, too fat to wear that, too hip to wear that. I am effin' WEARING THAT, and I am not going to judge myself about it. Judging oneself is for SUCKAS, for real! ALSO! I am going to express it, even if, by some standards, it kinda sucks. I paint because it's fun, not because I think I'm great at it, and I write for the same reason (hence, the blogaliciousness). I'm going to do what I wanna do, in living color, as we used to say. Seriously. I'ma just do my thang, okaaaaay?

This is all because of mom, who let me wear purple eyeshadow to 7th grade choir, posted my "Jackson 5 Keeps Me Alive" poem right out on the fridge, and put the flowers I made out of pink toilet paper on her fancy vanity table. I've always got her voice in the back of my mind, and it's always saying the same thing: own it, because it's yours. Just yours.

Thanks, Mom.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl