Jill Malone

I think of Solomon declaring the baby should be sliced in half.  I think of nannies, and step-mothers.  I think of tug-a-war.  Where do women learn to share children?  Where do we work out the responsibilities, and the roles?

I think of Woody Allen’s infamous joke, “… Very few people survive one mother.”

We’ve had to be new women.  Deciding which of us will carry, and which of us will stay home, and what we’ll be called, and how to share.  And it must be deliberate.  Thoughtful.  We must take action to have a child  — track down a donor, or adopt.  Or, if we’ve joined a family, figure out how to make a place for ourselves at the fire.

And somehow, sort out where our careers fall.  Because we each have those too.

These conversations feel new to me, because they are new.  We’re writing as we go.  Journaling the possibilities.  The way women always have.

We’re in a coffee shop, steam hissing, dishes hauled, orders called.  The dude behind us dispenses advice like a pharmacist.  You can almost hear the milligrams.

Our laptops touch.  We’re plugged in.  To the wall, to the internet, to this third cup of coffee.

And chatting online as well.  It’s easier here to read than listen.  Though writing is our best default in any case.

We have three cell phones on the table next to the Mexican Coke, and the cookie crumbs.  Another twenty minutes and we’ll be late for something.

I have to go; she’s phoning me.

Our father was easier to define.  For one, he wore a uniform, with silver crosses on the shoulders, and the hat.  God’s man.  Got it.  He shot hoops with us; played soccer.  Athlete, check.  He’d sit at the piano, pull out the trumpet.  Musician, check.  He biked, and ran, and fished, and camped.  He worked on cars.  We watched him every Sunday, preach from the pulpit.  We defined him by his actions.

I remember my mother in the kitchen, or curled on a couch reading.  I remember her as passive.  But she sewed, and cross-stitched, and painted, and biked.  She camped with us.  She walked in the mornings with her New Balance sneakers.  Did she seem passive in comparison to my father?  Or did she seem passive because her interests were, principally, feminine?

My mother is less quiet now.  She leads a bike club, and heads committees.  She’ll talk your arm off and holler down the hole.  Sometime in her fifties, she let go a little.  Gave up makeup.  Chopped her hair.  Went sporty.  She renders opinions, and much of the time, they’re her own.  She has tools, and fixes things.

She has evolved, hasn’t she, or is it my viewpoint?  Which has changed?