I recently met a friend for lunch at an Indian restaurant in town. It’s a small space with about ten tables placed close together. We chose a table in the center of the room, but I was tempted by a nearby spot near a sunny window. So we moved. But once there, we realized the sun was so glaring through the window that we had to squint to read the menu. Apologizing to the server, we returned to our original seats.
I thought of my mother, who was never pleased with her first choice of a restaurant table. In a piece called “Having Her Way” in Still Here Thinking of You, I recall the ways in which she would – calmly but firmly – get what she wanted in certain situations, even once encouraging a group to give up their table so our family could sit there.
Her habits of persuasion appear in me from time to time. The other day, my daughter Kathy and I were reminiscing about a Richie Havens concert we’d attended a couple of years before. While he was singing a particularly gentle song, accompanied only by his guitar, a man and woman sitting directly in front of us decided to have a chat. I poked the woman on the back and told her to be quiet.
“You sounded so severe,” Kathy said. “It was kind of scary.”
“Well, they shut up didn’t they?” I said. “And don’t forget, I’m my mother’s daughter.”
~Joan Potter
I thought of my mother, who was never pleased with her first choice of a restaurant table. In a piece called “Having Her Way” in Still Here Thinking of You, I recall the ways in which she would – calmly but firmly – get what she wanted in certain situations, even once encouraging a group to give up their table so our family could sit there.
Her habits of persuasion appear in me from time to time. The other day, my daughter Kathy and I were reminiscing about a Richie Havens concert we’d attended a couple of years before. While he was singing a particularly gentle song, accompanied only by his guitar, a man and woman sitting directly in front of us decided to have a chat. I poked the woman on the back and told her to be quiet.
“You sounded so severe,” Kathy said. “It was kind of scary.”
“Well, they shut up didn’t they?” I said. “And don’t forget, I’m my mother’s daughter.”
~Joan Potter
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