My mother treats me exactly the same as she has always done, and the same as my older sisters. She tells me off when I need it, and sometimes I do need telling to go to my room or to do my homework.
I show up in my writing room at approximately 10 A.M. every morning without fail. Sometimes my muse sees fit to join me there and sometimes she doesn't, but she always knows where I'll be. She doesn't need to go hunting in the taverns or on the beach or drag the boulevard looking for me.
My favorite thing is when I go back and my mother cooks for me. Because it just throws me back the same flavor. And I try to modify things: I say, "Why don't you do this and that?" My mother is older, but she cooks a lot, and she doesn't want to change anything. She's a very good cook, and my grandmother was an amazing cook.
My mother taught me this trick: if you repeat something over and over again it loses its meaning, for example homework homework homework homework homework homework homework homework homework, see? Nothing. Our existence she said is the same way. You watch the sunset too often it just becomes 6 pm you make the same mistake over and over you stop calling it a mistake. If you just wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up one day you'll forget why.
If you listen to Hillary 30 years ago and Hillary today, she's still complaining about the same things. She's still promising to fix the same things. She's still suggesting we need to address the same things. It tells me that in 30 years, she has not solved anything. In 30 years, she hasn't fixed anything. In 30 years, she hasn't made anything better.
Since birth, my mother made the decision at age 16 to pretend she never had me. She has never spoken to me. Even if present in the same room with other people and family, she pretends that I simply don't exist. She pretends I'm invisible.
She's always bragging about the dumbest stuff. The other day she was telling me, she's like, 'You know I can still fit in my wedding dress.' I was like, 'Oh my god, who cares, right?' I mean it is weird that she's the same size now as she was when she was 8 months pregnant.
She is such a doer, Cara - she is so ambitious. She has always known what she wants, and she's a hustler. Sometimes I call her, and I'm like, 'You need to help me hustle,' and she is like, 'Come on!'
Nayeon always makes me laugh, and she is so funny when we are together. She is older than me, and she really is like an older sister. She cares about me a lot, and always gives me advice on my problems. She is an awesome sister!
My mother is everything to me. She's my anchor, she's the person I go to when I need to talk to someone. She is an amazing woman.
When she is older she will see in these resemblances a regrettable uniformity among individuals (they all stop at the same spots to kiss, have the same tastes in clothing, flatter a woman with the same metaphor) and a tedious monotony among events (they are all just an endless repetition of the same one); but in her adolescence she welcomes these coincidences as miraculous and she is avid to decipher their meanings.
I had the honor to meet Geraldine Ferraro on a few occasions over the years at the DNC and what struck me was how she managed to be both gutsy and graceful at the same time. Without a doubt she was a trailblazer who not only stepped outside the box but who dared to redefine it. I always left her presence with the sense that she truly knew what she was talking about but that she never felt the need to browbeat you with it - instead she inspired people to listen and then act, and to me thats the hallmark of a true leader.
My mother, Anne, was a cleaner and a shopkeeper. Out of economic necessity she had to hold down two jobs and she would take me and my older sisters, Dawn and Joanna, and my younger brother, David, with her when she cleaned houses.
Both of my parents are music teachers. My mother owns the school that I taught in. My brothers and sisters are musicans. My mom pushed me all the time. She knew that I could do it. She knew more than I did. She thought I would go somewhere. She gave me the job and helped me get equipment, which a lot of parents don't do. Alot of my students had to go out and fight for it.
It doesn't need to be the same every day, doesn't need to be the same shower I use, the same restaurant I go to, the same hour I go to sleep. I've always been very flexible. I don't care if I practice at nine in the morning or 10 P.M.
As Mal's sister, my role is to be there when she needs me & mind my business when she doesn't. I expect the same. We will always be sisters, and will always have each other's backs.
I was raised in a religion that I never felt embraced me. That wasn't her fault. I had this amazing childhood. My mother is of her generation. If I'm going to ask her to accept me exactly as I am, I have to give her the same. She has read part of the book, but my sisters told her which chapters not to read!