STILL HERE THINKING OF YOU A Second Chance With Our Mothers
Follow the Writers
  • HOME
  • Book
  • Authors
  • Excerpts
  • "Moments of Being"
  • Reviews & Press
  • Readings & Events
  • Workshops
  • Purchase
  • Contact
  • Blog

Having My Way

3/9/2013

0 Comments

 
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
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Authors:

    Vicki Addesso
    Susan Hodara
    Joan Potter 
    Lori Toppel

    Archives

    February 2021
    May 2020
    July 2019
    May 2018
    December 2016
    September 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013

    Categories:

    All
    Daughters
    Family
    Food
    Friends
    Joan Potter
    Lori Toppel
    Memory
    Mothers
    Self-isolation
    Susan Hodara
    Vicki Addesso
    Writing

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Copyright @ 2013 Still Here Thinking of You by Vicki Addesso, Susan Hodara, Joan Potter, and Lori Toppel