So, how did my mom inspire us?
When
I was four mom wanted to take oil painting class. I got to go with
her. They gave me my own canvas, my own brushes, my own oil paints and
let me at it. I fell in love with art. There were no requirements, no
texts, no lectures. It became a part of me.
Mom did not teach me
to read before school. I never saw my name until my kindergarten teacher
wrote it down and told me to take that to my mother and have my mother
sit down and teach me how to write it. My preschool years and that of my
peers were not spent learning academics, beyond being read to and told
nursery rhymes and singing children's songs.
Mom was not a
college graduate until the year I graduated from college. She took many
college classes while I was growing up. We would go to the library and
we studied together. We did not have much money for books. However,
when the new library opened when I was 10 years old, we all went to the
library and got new library cards. We went to the library often, and I
began to love the library, the mysteries that unfolded from books, as
well as its quiet order. I saw my mom grapple with learning new things.
It was never a question of whether I would attend college. We had
monopoly, scrabble and cards. Mom played these games with us. Mom always
won at scrabble. This encouraged our learning to spell. After all, we
were trying to grow up and that was what the grown ups did! We had few
books. We had one oversized, beautifully Illustrated Hans Christian
Andersen book. My sister and I had her read our favorite tales to us,
even when we were in high school.
When I was nine my mother
introduced us to the arts. She explained about the reverential respect
one shows at concerts, museums, plays etc. It is a respect for the
artist and their works. We are not there to compete for attention. It
is also reverential respect for those who come to be lifted by the
arts. They sacrificed time and money to attend. We understood we were
to not speak except at intermission of plays, movies, and concerts. That
there were appropriate times to applaud. If we were sick with a cold,
we did not go, out of respect for others. I came to love the preforming
arts and visual arts.
Mom wanted to teach us about hospitality.
She taught us how to cook and clean right next to her. Then she even
took off work to teach cooking to my junior Girl Scout troop. She
arranged for us to use the kitchen at the junior high school. I learned
to love to cook. Then when I was in Junior High, mom would call home
and say she was bringing dinner guest and asked me to prepare dinner for
X number of people. I would tidy the house and have salad, sides, roast
and dessert made, table set, when she walked in the door. More often
than not it was a general and his wife or other very interesting
persons. I learned to listen and to express myself.
Funny thing,
the only thing she paid us to do was weeding. She paid a quarter a paper
grocery sack of weeds! Back then I could go to movies on the base for
fifteen cents. I could by a candy bar for nickel. I could buy a burger
for a quarter. A new Toyota was under two thousand dollars! So, a
quarter had a lot of buying power for a child. Weeding was the only work
we shunned! Mom did not want to do it, and so, neither did we. I had
to learn as an adult to find joy in the process. Yard work gives me
great time for contemplation and saves me the membership at the gym!
If we were sick we stayed home from school. It was respectful to others not to get them sick.
We
lived in Hawaii and often had guests from the mainland. I got to skip
school to take them on the tour of the Island! I knew the history and
the great spots as much as any local. My mother bought matinee tickets
to the symphony and I got to cut school to go. Mom understood that
learning can happen anywhere and that learning and seat time were not
the same. Awful
you might say. I still graduated one of 20% that could read at the
college level, even though I was not in class every day and we had few
books at home. She inspired us to LOVE learning.
