Mother Knows, First
#022 Wisdom from Mom
My mother is the first person in the entire world who told me I was a writer. Except, at six years old I didn’t comprehend the guidance of my mother’s words.
I was too young, and too vain.
Before the start of first grade my mother made me write my numbers zero to ten, and upper and lower case letters onto handwriting paper that had blue, red and dashed lines. Under her instruction every letter and number had to be pristinely written.
The prize for writing these letters and numbers — beautifully — was the freedom to walk around the library to select up to twenty five books and a few VHS movie tapes. My baby sister wasn’t entirely reading at that time so I got to choose the bulk of the book selections.
Strange as it may seem, I thought the library and those books were alive. I felt them teasing me each time I entered the library: You’ll never read all of us! Ha ha ha!
Beautifully drawn or painted picture books with an artistic slant were my favorite kind of books at that age. Whatever book’s artwork seemed the most unique caught my attention. And on one visit to the library I got the bright idea to rush through my handwriting so that I’d be free to just browse the shelves. But my mother saw right through my terrible handwriting.
Her face scrunched in disgust, and her voice sang in a sing-song decrescendo, “Ooh, this is awful. This is not my Danver!”
Because I knew I hadn’t done my best, her words didn’t land with much shock. Then I became aware that my idea of not-so-bad, wasn’t hers. I remember feeling the sensation of damn, but not with the adult version of the word. My hope, that she might let me get away with poor quality, failed. And I was left frustrated that going faster took me further away from what I really wanted. She made me re-write everything — the first time I’d ever have to do a re-write.
In the fury I got lost in the world of letters and numbers.
I loved how the pencil never left the page for number eight. I loved to write the letter D, for obvious reasons. I discovered that in my mind the letters had distinct colors. H was orange. E was blue. I remember wishing I had a letter B in my name. Letter Y and Z were fun, but most likely because I was about to be done.
Because I worried my mother might deny me again I wrote meticulously and that’s when my middle finger on my right hand began to hurt. A lump was there, one I’d not seen before and I immediately thought the worst. I called for my mother. “Mommy!”
When she arrived I lifted my right hand up and showed her my hand. She was not alarmed as I thought she would be. She examined my finger in the delicate way that only she could. Then she sets my hand free from hers and says, “That’s a writer’s mark. You have a writer’s mark.”
My reaction to her comment is pure vanity. Hideous! Gross! Eew! I look down at my finger and think, I don’t want to be a writer if my hand is going to be so ugly.
What surprises me now is the way that I quickly bowed out, perhaps subconsciously, in reverence to the social expectation to keep myself, pristine?
Even though my family had a proper typewriter, one that my father used strictly for business, I was only permitted to use it to type on special occasions. So, I had a good six more years of handwriting everything before computer keyboards became the foundation of my writerly world.
So, that knobby callous never went away. Instead it put a noticeable dent in my fingernail. And as far as the rest of my hand is concerned, you can see that my vanity was tempered by scars and markings in my twenties with my first taste of adulting:
My pointer finger was lacerated with a metal hanger I got from the cleaners while attempting to make a homemade tool instead of buying a hardware kit.
My middle finger broke in South Korea working the land and I never saw a doctor.
I have no idea what the scar on my middle knuckle is from. Maybe those years of martial arts?
A little further down, just below my wrist knuckle I accidentally scraped layers of my skin off when I assumed that a cheese grater would remove the wall paint that was stuck to my skin — and not layers of my skin. Yeah, not my finest moment.
I want to tell you that my left hand is pristine…but it isn’t. I’m cringing way too much to tell you what I did last week to my pinky finger that both a dear friend and doctor questioned my — dare I say, sanity?
At six my mother knew my thing before I even knew my thing.
The passionate rejection I felt at six tells me that something inside of me had already identified with the life of a writer. But some other part of me didn’t want what it was going to cost. It was a part of me that wanted to breeze through life without having to be wounded or scarred.
I can also listen to the message underneath my mother’s simple words, as though she spoke in another language that I am only now picking up on. First, there is the wisdom of her returning my hand to me before she spoke, and next there is her deeper message.
My mother let me know that our trip to Earth was going to be full of scars, and that I was to write, anyway.
Thank you so much for reading. I’d love to see your hands — your primary writing hand. Please drop a photo in solidarity of the writer’s mark in the comment section if you feel so inclined (I think the six year old in me would love to see that).
Here’s one from one of my readers (🖊️ with fresh pen ink!) who responded to the call!
Many thanks to Foster for its writing circles and other writerly resources.
In our modern world turning to a spiritual journey is a sacred rite of passage with an infinite number of paths to explore. Being well-prepared before embarking on this journey is what I wish I had been equipped with so long ago. If the idea of being well-prepared for your spiritual journey resonates with you, then I invite you to join the waitlist for my upcoming course. The nature of your role in the universe is not to be underestimated.
🧁 Thank you for reading Icing on the Cake. In addition to subscribing, you can support voices in culture work and psycho-spirituality with a one-time donation/tip here. With your generosity I can continue delivering thoughtful and independent essays and stories.
Beautiful essay - a handful of history, stories told and untold and the potential for many more. (I took a photo of my hand, but there's no way to post it on Substack...boo hoo!)