"I Got It from My Mama"

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Escaping into Pop Music

There was a popular American song I wrote about while in India. The artist, will.i.am, is asking a series of girls about the origin of their beautiful bodies. All of them sing-chant: "I got it from my mama."

This morning, before, and after, reading Thomas Friedman's and Caitlin Flanagan's and Julie Buxbaum's "New York Times" articles, I'm unable to stop singing a piece of a pop song in my head. "...jeans, boots with the fur; the whole club was looking at her...." I went to check the lyrics and found a crazy mashup of the song with a Teletubbies video on Youtube.

Music vs. Reality

It is a gorgeous day and in 30 minutes, I'll be on my way to the pool for a swim and then we'll be on our way to my mother's to celebrate her. That sounds better than innocuous, right? It sounds lovely. And it can be, but likely not purely so.

This morning, I'm fixated on pop-song choruses because they're easier than reality. The reality is that we need to haul my mom around in a wheel-chair because her broken leg is still healing. And she'll probably never be as mobile as she was prior to the accident.

And with my mother, being 82, we are lucky to have made it this far before there was any sort of major decline. I'm grateful for that. There's no diminished mental capacity on my mom's part; her memory's sharper than mine even, but the physical challenges are undeniable.

Calling My Mom

After reading Thomas Friedman's and Caitlin Flanagan's columns in particular, I wanted to dial my mother's phone number. And yet, a few minutes later, when the phone rang and it was my mother, asking for some chores to be done in her behalf, I couldn't wait to finish the conversation.

I guess I hate chores. Ahd I like blogging.

Why can't it be like it was when both of us were in our skipping prime, when I was seven and she was 47? Why can't my mother be purely a mother to me, rather than partly a mother and partly a daughter?

Both columnists lamented that they couldn't call their mothers even if they wanted to, since they were dead, and that was what I always thought was worst about my father, being gone. I could not call him to brag or complain.

Dreams and Legacies

Probably the most poignant part of Thomas Friedman's column was this statement: "It's so easy to overlook -- your mom had dreams, too."

Yes, my mother had dreams, none of which included a major car accident, or breast cancer (that she's cured of), or an aortic aneurysm, or having a daughter with breast cancer (that she's cured of), or losing her husband to cancer at 56....

She has so far accomplished some of her dreams, though -- of studying in Israel in 1950, of being a journalist before she married, of marrying my father, of collecting and selling primitive Jewish-American and Israeli art....

Those women, responding to will.i.am, said they got their bodies from their mamas. What did I get from my mama? My smile, my enthusiasm, my belief that anything's possible, my love of my culture and religion, and of museums, and my capacity for kindness to others....

Enjoying the Gift of Being Present

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Guilt Safari

"The only thing I wish we had had time to do was go to a national park [to see wildlife]," Pat told me over the weekend.

I'm spending a fair amount of time, trying not to feel guilty lately. Colleagues are saying, "Hey, don't leave now. Everything's not yet complete. You can't leave in the middle." ...I'm not leaving for more than a month, but it has begun already...and it's flattering, yet unsettling.

And then Pat told me she had a regret over what we didn't get to do while in India.

Presence Presents

Channa's friend, Manjunata, gave me a ride to work today, since Channa was ill. As we drove across the flyover in Whitefield, I saw a glistening elephant, fresh from a river-bath, with its trunk raised like a natural trumpet; over its trunk, a single word: "Come."

The elephant was gracing a giant billboard, like the ones we see driving into Manhattan from my sister Deb's and her family in Queens. It was an ad for Cicada Resorts, "Wildlife, Club Class." If I can get my final paper written by December 13th, we can go during our last weekend in Bangalore. We'll see. I did send an inquiry to the resort and received an automated message that they'd contact us during office hours.

How calming it would be to see wildlife. During a relatively recent visit to the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, I found myself soothed, simply looking at a herd of sheep and lambs running up and down a yard that was dedicated to them.

Tonight, during a conversation with one of my dear mentors, she said, "That billboard was a perfect example of making sure you don't miss what's going on in the present either by looking for too long in the rear-view mirror, or by looking too far ahead."

Hot Songs and a Cool Professor

This morning was full of gifts: On the radio, I heard two really great songs for the first time: Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" and "Androgyny." Lewis' voice was haunting-rich while "Androgyny" was fun in its invitation to play with our gender. Though it was first released in 2001, I never heard it on American radio, but maybe that's not so shocking....

Also, I heard a guy rapping so poetically that I was reminded of Professor Lauren Berlant, whose interview never was published by the magazine I wrote for during my first summer after college, "Inside Chicago." It stopped publishing altogether within a year of its launch.

Professor Berlant met me at McDonald's on Randolph Street in Chicago, rather than in her U. of C. office. It was the summer of '87 and she was passionate about researching rap at the time. If I remember correctly, she thought that the poetic value of some of it was huge.

I thought she was so cool and then they didn't publish the interview I wrote. I didn't save a copy. I'm glad and not surprised that she's doing well 20 years later.

Songs that Remind Me It's Nearly Thanksgiving

The ride was rounded out by two, super-cheerful tunes, which I can't get out of my head now, and for which I'm grateful: "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" and "I Got It from My Mama."

The "...Mama" song actually made me homesick for my mother, though I doubt that that was its intention.