Happy birthday (month), Mom!
When I was still a whippersnapper, barely out of leading strings—circa the new millennium, not Regency-era Britain (I just can’t resist that sweet, sweet anachronistic tongue[1])—my mom wasted no time imparting life lessons.
Mom thought it was important she raised her “girls to be leaders—equal to men, but not necessarily the same. Important distinction.”
Mom scribbled the above line into a journal she started for me and Libby Drew in 1997. Its cover, a sketch of four girls hugging one another, depicts the March sisters from Louisa May Alcott’s famous coming-of-age novel. The Little Women Journal holds just two entries, a single page, front and back.
I suspect she intended on filling in the rest over the years, but her stay-at-home-mom days were ticking down like her favorite old egg timer. Once that sharp, ear-splitting alarm sounded, any extra time Mom had for such frivolous activities[2] was long over.
In her second entry, Mom writes, “I want so much for you both. I want to expose you to as much as possible in your life. Sports, theater, travel, interesting people, all of it.”
Cheryl Anne Nagle Kees Clendenon succeeded on all four counts.
Mom enrolled us in countless dance classes—ballet, hip-hop, tap, to name a few—attended all our soccer games, and ensured we never missed a single softball or tee-ball practice. She took us to our local theater, the Saenger, where I saw a traveling dance troupe perform The Lord of the Dance for the first time. That one experience awakened a decades-long passion for my Irish ancestry, culminating in my flying across the pond to fair Ireland—twice.
On my second trip, I spent two months in Dublin interning at a prestigious music magazine. I flew to Amsterdam and London and traveled all over Ireland. None of that would have happened if Mom hadn’t taken me to see that first performance as a snot-nosed kid. As for the interesting people she wanted to expose us to, we have met plenty over the years, but no one has surpassed the second man she married, Randy.
Please, humor me, as I now attempt to dispense[3] some of Mom’s nuggets of wisdom:
First, mascara comes from bat poop.
OK, I may have suggested this to her first (after hearing a rumor on the playground), but when I asked her if it was true, she deadpanned it was, in fact, true. Naturally, I believed her. For years. This memory is a point of contention, as Mom swears[4] it never happened, but I can tell you where we had the conversation.
We were in Mom’s bathroom at the Lakeview house. She was half in the shower, mid-leg shave. I’m buzzing around, firing off questions about why I can’t do the O so glam grown-up things she gets to do, like leg-shaving and makeup-wearing. Mom warns me that if I shave before it’s time, I’ll end up hairier than Bigfoot. Well, that certainly put me off it for a while longer.
Since most overly concerned mothers tell their unruly sprouting daughters that old wives’ tale, I don’t consider it one of Mom’s nuggets of wisdom. And because Mom doesn’t recall the one about bat guano, I’ll conclude with a more sincere pearl that has become a guiding principle in my life. I call it our family motto, and I plan on passing it down to my children one day. It needs neither an explanation nor any poetic flowering.
Just Mom’s words, chosen decades ago, given to me and Libby Drew on teeny-tiny bracelets shortly after 9/11:
“Listen to your heart, think for yourself.”
I love you so, Mom, and thank you for everything you’ve done for me. Happy birthday.
[1] Or, perhaps, I binged the new season of Bridgerton on Netflix, which could have something to do with my sudden fondness for fancy words and outdated speech.
[2] This isn’t entirely true, of course. I often brag about how awesome my mom was at keeping track of our school projects, preserving mementos, and the like. (She made epic Christmas cards for years.) Despite having less free time, Mom still did most of those things. Alas, none of that sounds as poetic as the analogy about the old egg timer. The struggles of being an artiste.
[3] Mom denies saying some of this, by the way, but I’m a more trustworthy source. (I have fewer decades under my belt, so my noodle must have less wear and tear than hers!)
[4] I’m wondering if anyone actually reads the footnotes.
Discover more from I love you so
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Were you ab
I love this. And yes peop
This is just so good! Oh how I love reading your memories of your spectacular mom. She is – and has always been – a magnificent force in the world!
Thank you! She truly is. I like the idea of sharing some light-hearted memories from childhood online, because a lot of this stuff won’t “fit” into the memoir. It’s been nice having my blog as an outlet to share memories that might not make the final cut.