Mothers and archives
March 1 marks the 51st year of my mother’s death. I prefer to honor her on her birthday, February 4th (1915). But this year was a little different. With the help of Neda Movahed, I finally went through boxes of slides my father took from the 1950s to the mid 1970s. And with the pictures came a whole host of new ways to think about my mother.
Perhaps because she was so young (60) and I was so young (27) when she died, the way I came to think about her and the narratives I held about her and me and the family never altered. In my experience, history and memory shift as new experiences replace the older stories. But with my mother, I held on firmly to what I knew. Turns out, the photos tell so much more. And now, at this late age, I have been gifted with a past that might as well be a different movie. It is not so much that the pictures tell me more about our relationship. They just signify more about her in the world. She is more gregarious, and focused outward then the introspective, reflective and private person she was with me. Or maybe she was also this way with me and I don’t recall it.
Then again, I have to remember that so much of our time together was her driving me to dance class. Or us washing the dishes together. There was no camera around and our hands were busy with other necessities and our thoughts flying quietly out the window.
