Mother Wolf
Squalls of snow are blowing sideways in Pennsylvania. It is midwinter. My mother is in Virginia and we haven’t spoken in more than five years.
I long for fragments of sunshine—sweat on skin, blooming, salt in the air. I would like to say that I miss her too, earn some sympathy points with you, reader, but I do not.
*
“I was raised by wolves”: an expression humans use to indicate a particularly toxic upbringing. This expression draws upon the supposedly predatory nature of the wolf, an association with danger and devouring, something fierce and sinister. A warrior and a devil. The Big Bad Wolf.
But this is unfair to the wolf.
*
Wolves are social, pack animals. Family-oriented animals. The alpha male and female create a bonded pair, often stay together for life. Wolf pups are born blind and deaf and they depend on their mother and other members of the pack to take care of them. Non-breeding females produce milk and the males compete to babysit.
I am a “non-breeding female,” and I admit that I don’t like the term, which suggests that my femaleness is tied to my ability to breed. As if non-breeding equals non-female. As if broken rather than whole—as if something wrong in me prevents me from mothering. I chose not to bring more children into the world. I am not “non.”
My own mother once told me that she was “born to make babies.” She offered her short labors, her ability to work until the day of delivery, and her ease at breastfeeding as evidence of this claim. Never wanting to be a mother, I confess, I judged her for her narrow life goals.
*
Once upon a time, a little girl with brown hair walked across the yard from her mother’s yellow house to her grandmother’s white house. Even though her mother ordered her to stay strictly at her grandmother’s house, the little girl would hide in the grapevines. She also liked to take her dog deep in the forest, to play and howl in the woods, there where the sound of her mother’s voice could not reach.
*
My mother wore burnt orange leather boots in the snow. Their color shifted to something darker when wet, but when placed by the wood stove, they dried and returned to the color of burnt hide. Magic boots. Knee high with braided seams, something out of the seventies. I loved them.
She wore those boots in the winter to carry my infant-self across the gravel driveway separating our house from my grandparent’s house. My mother worked second shift, my father third, and my grandparents first. There was always someone home to babysit, but mostly, this duty fell to my grandparents. When my mother divorced my father and married my stepfather, she continued to be absent. But it’s not as if I was neglected. In fact, I was raised by a pack. The memories of my childhood are flooded with those other pack members: images of coloring with one grandfather in the den, or picking beans with another grandfather in his garden, or reading the encyclopedia with my third grandfather, or helping any of my three grandmothers cook dinner, shuck corn, or can beans for winter
As a small girl, I put my too-short legs in those boots and marched all over my grandparents’ house. As a teenager, I commandeered them for myself. I wore them even when it was too hot in the South for boots. Now, as an adult, they are a half-size too small. I can wear them for a short period of time and only with thin socks. Mostly, they take up space in my closet.
*
Wolves only use dens when wolf pups are too young to travel with the pack.
Usually located near water and sheltered by natural structures or dug into soil with a south-facing slope, dens can be and are often reused by the pack. Defined trails radiate from the entrance.
*
In Roman mythology, the wolf-goddess Lupa finds the infant twins, Romulus and Remus, future founders of Rome, and nurses them until a shepherd takes them in. The actual growth of Rome is less exotic and interesting. Seven hills of settlements near the Tiber River gradually joined together for strength and protection.
*
I grew up in a family with shifting perimeters. While my grandparents, on both sides, managed to marry young and stay married, this was not the case with my own parents or some of my aunts and uncles. My parents were quite civil in their post-divorce interactions; for me, divorce was more about gaining additional family than grieving something fractured. It never occurred to me that my own parents must have suffered something. When both parents remarried, I had more grandparents, aunts, and uncles to love.
*
My favorite stories as a child were not unusual: The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast. In both, the mothers are dead, and the stories provide no details about their deaths. The children are raised by their king fathers, and both spend time separated from the family before defeating some curse to marry princes. Neither Ariel nor Belle settled for what others told them should make them happy.
In the majority of fairy tales, the mothers are dead or otherwise absent. When there is a mother figure, it is a stepmother. And she is evil. As Euripides wrote, “better a serpent than a stepmother.” It’s fair to say the trope of the wicked stepmom makes its way through literature: Snow White, Cinderella, through Tolstoy and Judy Blume.
In The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Maria Tatar points out that some fairy tales have variants: one version has an evil mother and the other an evil stepmother. This switch is deliberate. Consider the Grimm’s Snow White or Hansel and Gretel. The original villain was the biological mother, but a stepmother in later editions. Surely the mother could not send her children into the woods to die, though maybe a stepmother is capable of such violence.
But we know that biology sometimes begets the bigger monsters.
*
Iodine and baby oil. My mother sunbathing topless in the backyard. She lies on her stomach, back to the sun. The grass below her chair. Her arms drape its edges. Her towel is orange. Bees fly among her flower blossoms. Her back is a flat pedestal for the scar that stretches the entire length of her left shoulder blade.
Other times, we go to the pool. Chlorine and blue water. An overpriced snack bar stocked with grilled cheese and hotdogs; all the “junk” I am never allowed to eat because it might ruin my dinner. She sends me to play with strangers in the water while she chats with her friend. My mother never gets into the pool; she prefers the sun.
From the water, my mother and her friend look like twins except for my mother’s scar: a battle wound from open heart surgery when she was in high school. This scar, I think, makes her special. All I know is that when her doctor discovered the problem, he couldn’t understand how she was still alive and running track.
As a kid, I thought her scar was the source of some super power. I was obsessed with She-Ra, the cartoon superhero, known for her strength and empathic abilities. I watched her use her brains to outsmart her adversaries, very rarely employing violence against her robotic enemies. I thought that if I had a scar like my mother’s, then I too could be She-Ra strong and She-Ra smart. I could be enough.
*
At her grandmother’s house, the little girl picked flowers, pulled beans from the garden, wandered off with her golden retriever to eat grapes directly from the vine.
*
As a girl, I played with dolls. But I never thought of them as babies. At first, they were my students. I sat them in desks in the garage. I taught them how to read, how to write. We worked out the difficulties of multiplication on my little chalk easel. A little later, I graduated to Barbies. My imagination was more rebellious in its creation of strong female leads: one was a lesbian, one was a drug dealer, another a mafia boss’ wife. I changed their clothes, cut their hair—made them something other.
My mother decided that I collected porcelain dolls; I don’t know why since they terrified me. Every childhood Christmas a new white-faced statue arrived to sit in my play classroom. The last one was a baby with short brown hair and brown eyes like my own. Unable to sit or stand in my garage school, she was ignored in a basket crib, her painted eyes open, staring at the ceiling in the den.
When I went to college, my mother asked what I wanted to do with the dolls. I told her she could do whatever she wanted with them. They were for her, not me.
*
Wolf pup mortality ranges from 30% to 60%. Pups can die from diseases, malnutrition, and starvation. Wolves are such social animals that they have been known to bury the dead pups. R.D. Lawrence writes, in In Praise of Wolves, that pack members “mourn as deeply as might a human family.”
*
My mother miscarried her third child. I was young, maybe six years old, maybe slightly older. I stood in the bathroom and touched her belly. She told me that there would be another brother or maybe a sister. I requested a sister. Then, she was sick for a few days. And there was no more talk of siblings. Later, when she almost divorced my stepfather, she told me she was glad the baby died.
*
In the months after my divorce, I confess to baby longing. Very specifically: baby girl longing. This jarring urge for procreation felt unnatural. My entire adult life, including the near decade of my first marriage, I actively willed my body not to reproduce.
But after my divorce, all I wanted was a daughter. Calliope Marie. Named for the Muse and my grandmother. Every clichéd expression of biological want that could possibly appear did; my brain was suddenly hardwired for reproduction. I blame biology for this Hail Mary baby-want, a desire I did not want at all.
*
Wolves are the ancestors of domestic dogs. While scientists are still arguing the exact timeline of when such domestication occurred, suffice it to say that it happened long ago. Regardless of when it happened, for thousands of years dogs cross-bred with wolves, with other dogs, and have been deliberately bred by humans. Studying the genome of wolves does not provide clarity. As Ed Yong notes, no living group of wolves is more closely related to dogs than any other. So the wolves that begot modern dogs are now extinct.
*
My mother gave birth to my brother on the floor of our bathroom. I was three years old, but I remember everything. She had just returned from her shift at the hospital (she was a nurse in ICU) and was taking a shower. I was asleep in her bed. I woke up when I heard her fall in the bathroom. And then she delivered my brother on her own. My stepfather (an EMT) arrived in time to cut the cord and then drive them to the hospital. Birth is not something that you can unsee.
For some reason, my mother claims I was asleep in the bed, that I slept through the entire birth.
*
When the girl arrives at her grandmother’s house she is afraid; everything is red, red, red. Her grandmother soothes her with a story of a woodcutter who will get lost and
will need someone to guide him through the woods. She gives the girl a small, square suitcase. Inside you will find the scents to guide him through the dirt, grass, and snow, she says.
*
When I think back to my teenage-self, I am neither easy nor difficult. I am mostly unattended. Maybe, over-scheduled. I have dance lessons every day after school. And by sophomore year, I have a part-time job. And soccer. And cross country. I drink and smoke pot. I have a lot of casual sex. But I arrive home by curfew. I respect the house rules even when I disagree with them. I do my chores. There is minimal yelling. I do not lie, though I often leave out part of the truth in service of staying out later or spending the night with friends.
Before I can drive, I am “involved in the church,” as we say in the South. Because I have no choice. Once I can drive, I take a job that requires me to work on Sunday mornings. My mother considers herself a devout Christian. Her devotion has become more prominent with age. She told me once that her biggest regret as a mother was that she didn’t require us to pray at dinner. She forgets, of course, that praying at dinner would also have required sitting down to eat together.
*
My husband has primary custody of his two kids from his first marriage. Their mother made the no doubt difficult decision to take a job out of state. As a writer and professor myself, I understand the need for a professional identity, and some form of public accolade that is not doled out to mothers.
Marrying my husband makes me a stepmother. Also, a laundry-wench, lunch-packer, breakfast-maker, house-cleaner, sounding board, organizer, kidschlepper, and dinner cleaner-upper.
When our relationship first became serious, I knew it was important for me to be clear about my intentions. The four of us gathered in the den, lamb burgers and fries on our plates, for our first family meeting. I love your father, I said. I know how you feel about me might be complicated, and that is okay, I said. You already have a mother. I cannot replace your mother, nor do you need me to. I am a bonus person
who will support you, and love you, on your terms, if you are interested, I said. The boy child said, we have to like you because our dad loves you. I laughed, and said, you are under no such obligation. But if you think it is more appropriate, I can be an ogre, get a witch’s wart to wear on my nose. A mark of evil. No, don’t do that, he said giggling.
Then, we devoured our burgers and watched a movie together. Four bodies, overlapping our blanket boundaries, nestled onto one couch.
*
Sperm and egg. Mothers give birth to their children. But breeding is to biology what mothering is to pack dynamics. Stepmothers love their children too, despite not giving birth to them.
*
I never allowed myself to imagine that my husband’s kids might actually need me.
So, at every turn I am surprised when I am invited into private moments of their lives: to sit on the floor and look at photos from a time before me, to read drafts of comics and stories, to help pick out outfits, to make decisions about future project fabric and colors, to go for a walk, to ride bikes, to be the special person at Special Person’s Day, to curl hair for a band concert, to help overhaul a room into something “more grown up.”
We have our own unique bonds; we influence each other’s evolutions. And the biggest shock of all—I completely love taking care of these children who are not mine.
*
Once sexually mature, most wolves leave their birth pack to search for a new territory or join a new pack.
Wolves will aggressively defend their territories from other packs.
*
I left my position as a tenured professor to move north to be with my husband and his kids. I did not tell my mother about my husband until the day before I left for Pennsylvania. As I was walking out of my grandmother’s kitchen, where we were all gathered for dinner, I paused and in one rushed sentence, said, “By the way, I sold my house, moved to Pennsylvania, and I’m getting married next October in Greece.” Her response was brief: “but what about your job?” She never asked who I’d be marrying.
My job—my tenured and nearly impossible to replace academic job—my job that I love could not compete with the very simple fact: I now belonged in a new territory. My decision to resign my position was logically very easy, I wanted to be with my husband and his kids. Being away from them gave me a new definition of isolation, one that left me anxious. However, relinquishing something I had worked so hard for was a bit more complicated. It helped that my husband never asked me to leave my job. Instead, he only made room for my developing vulnerability.
My mother’s singular, career-related response is exactly what I expected from her. And yet, it still disappointed me.
*
Wolves have a complex communication system that involves the language of the body: barking, growling, “dancing,” howling, and scent-making.
Wolves’ best communication comes during the hunt for prey. Known to stalk a herd of elk or caribou for days, they search for weakness, look for the right conditions, and attack.
*
There were many nights when my mother just wasn’t home. When we were in school, my mother’s schedule stabilized into day shifts and she returned to college in the evenings in order to advance her nursing career. As she took on more
responsibilities at work, she would leave for weeks at a time for conferences and other job-related certifications. I never held her education or drive for success against her, I only saw it for what it was—a path for getting more out of her life. I admired this desire for achievement and internalized it. My own independence and strength come from her mapping such a trail for me.
But I missed her.
When I was twenty eight years old, my mother told me that she wished that she had been around for us more when my brother and I were younger. She said that the most painful thing I ever told her was that she was never there.
At the time, my first marriage was failing, and I think her confession was a thinly veiled attempt to get me to reconsider my priorities. There was some truth to her words. Now I understand that part of the reason my marriage failed was because I valued career over everything else. Rather than admit how unhappy I was in that marriage, I devoted myself to my students and poetry. I was not ready to unlearn that lesson yet.
At the time, her statement rang false to me. Maybe that’s because I didn’t want to hear it, but also, I think, on some level, we earn the wisdom required to advise others. She had not. While I give her credit for attending my annual dance recital, she was always at work or at school. And when she was home we were at the pool, or she was pulling weeds in her flower garden. She had become an authority on absence.
*
Mothers should teach their children what is necessary to survive this world. They must provide support and be present. They do not have to be perfect. But they have to show up. My mother demanded good grades, a clean room, and that I drink milk every day. She forbade sweets, soda, and too much television. She provided books for my overactive imagination and countless dance lessons. I was never hungry. I was never without a bed to sleep in. I was never without clothing or shoes. Yet, I cannot remember ever hearing her say that she was proud of me.
For me, mothering is standing around the kitchen island and talking about school while your kid eats a bowl of cereal. It is reminding children to do their chores and praising a job well done. It is ice cream cones and bike rides. It is helping them figure out how to tackle their fears. It is teaching them that their best is enough for you, even when it isn’t enough for the world. It is judgement-free, shame-free.
And, just like their children, mothers are imperfect. They make mistakes and should apologize for those mistakes.
*
I am angry at my mother, but anger is a secondary emotion, at least according to those who know better. Really, I am disappointed, again. She is guarded and she is closed. When she is angry at you, it can take weeks or months or years for her to speak to you again. I was also that way for a long time. Thankfully, I have learned to shed these survival instincts, though it has been difficult not to follow her down that trail.
The summer pool and the winter boots. Beyond this, an absence.
*
Wolves are headstrong, competitive, and independent.
*
When the woodcutter arrives to save the girl from the wolves, she tells him to put his ax away. The girl and her grandmother are unharmed; together they fill the wolf’s body with stones. After, the girl and the woodcutter take a walk in the woods with her dog.
*
I should not say these things, Mother Wolf.
I never thought that I would pack lunches in the morning, attend elementary school plays and high school band performances. I told myself I was too selfish to be anyone’s mother. I rationalized that it would be easier to be a lone wolf, but this did not turn out to be true. Now I understand that I was too afraid of becoming an absence.
I shovel the snow in knee-high boots and, on warm days, dig overgrown ornamental grasses out of the flower beds. These are things I accept, joyfully, Mother Wolf.
You turn sixty in late December. My brother has given you two boy grandchildren. My stepfather calls you Granny Grump. You live in a house in the woods near a lake. You have the red nose and withered chest of a woman who spent too much time in the sun. Your hair is dark. As far as I know you are healthy. You take no pills or medications. You have just returned from a pilgrimage to Israel. You used to drink a glass of wine every night. I have no idea if this is still true.
*
The snow continues to fall, though the roads have already been plowed and salted. The sun is shining despite the squalls. Our weekend plans include a Saturday of nothing but pajamas. On Sunday, perhaps a board game or a walk through the woods in the snow. Maybe sledding.
When I close my eyes, I see the wet of your boots, the iodine separated from the baby oil, and the scar stretching the slope of your shoulder blade across your side to the space behind your heart.