I should make a poll, but I am just so lazy.

[constance]

I've been kind of quiet lately because I've been working on a Mother's Day present for my sentimental mother. It is a homemade project, a biggish one, which I am calling "One Hundred Letters." I've bought a photo album, the kind with plastic pockets for photos, and in each pocket I will put one letter, a story of us. I think my mother will love it, but I am having a moment of crisis because I can't decide on something, and I want you to help me.

So these letters, they are memories and impressions of my childhood and adulthood from the daughter perspective of a mother-daughter relationship. I was lucky to have had a engaged and committed parents, so I have tons of stories--more than enough to make it to a hundred, no matter what--but I'm not sure whether to include good stories and uncomfortable ones, or only stick to the good ones.

Now, I'm not talking about traumas, or family skeletons. I know that a mother's day present is not the place to talk about the worst moments of either of our lives. And I wouldn't include anything uncomfortable that didn't have something of redeeming value in it; I'm only talking about the things that might not reflect one or another of us--or either of us--in the rosiest light. The time I threw a candle at my mother. The time she forgot my brother at a gas station (BEFORE YOU CALL THE POLICE THERE IS A GOOD EXPLANATION FOR THIS I PROMISE YOU).

So that's the crisis of indecision. Should I include the not-so-good stuff with the good? What do you think?

Comments

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

My daughter is only six, so I don't know what it's like to be the mother of an adult -- but from whatever limited self-knowledge I have now, I think I'd want all of it. The good and the not-so-good.

What an incredibly beautiful mother's day gift! You do know that she's probably going to bawl her eyes out. Or at least I would.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I hope she does! I want something that she will remember! For always!

I have been thinking this too, that I'd want both--and I'm glad to get the opinion of a mother.

I owe you an email! I will get to it when I finish this project up, I promise. But in the meantime: I AM WONDERING IF I HAVE KILLED YOUR STORY AND I AM HOPING THAT I DIDN'T BECAUSE I ADORE IT.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Heee! No, no, you haven't killed it; it got trampled upon by a herd of hormones, all trumpeting at the top of their lungs and heading for Stargate Atlantis. I know. I don't get it either.

But it is still in progress, even if not in *active* progress. It's got a Breakfast Club story, a big pile of Due South and Harry Potter, and a Finn Family Moominslash to keep it company in the "someday" pile.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Okay, then! :D

Also requiring smiley comment: Finn Family Moominslash O_o_O_o_O

You must finish this, because...well, because. Because the world clearly is in need of Moominslash.

(Which, incidentally, is the best word of all time.)

[coco-palmolive.livejournal.com]

I think yes, if the story has an ultimately happy ending -- if one of you learned something from the experience and know it, etc.

What a great idea. I'm glad my mother won't know about it. You are making the rest of us look bad. Me anyway.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I was just going to buy her a greyhound tennis bracelet. But my mother's days are usually so sloppily-done, and with my grandmother so ill, Mom's going to have a rough one this year, and I want it at least to have some good bits to it.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Like resonant8, I don't have the "mom with grown-up kids" insight, but looking at it from my limited 10 years' worth of experience, plus considering my own relationship with my mom, I'd say the uncomfortable ones have their place in the hundred. Sometimes, after all, those experiences can be looked back on with humor, and they all do have redeeming value, as you said, so I vote for including them.

That said, what a fabulous gift. It's a tremendous present that she'll treasure forever, and I applaud your creativity. Will she savor the letters, spacing them out over days, or will she blow through them all at once?

Also, I want to hear the gas station story sometime. You know, when you're not busy writing a hundred letters!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

My mother is the sort to savor, I think. She will read them slowly, so she can take them all in, and in order, because she never does things out of order.

One day, I shall tell you the gas station story. I warn you: though it contains no actual ill intent, it is not a story that reflects well on the passengers in that van (me, my mother, and my brother).

[bowdlerized.livejournal.com]

I think that as long as you are doing it to be completist and not to be subconsciously passive-aggressive, it is a-okay.

Also I just got home from seeing my boyfriend John Darnielle (<3!) and I haven't even BEGUN to pack!

AM I FUCKED OR WHAT!??!?!?!?!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

PACK

PACK NOW OR YOU WILL END UP WITH THIRTY PAIRS OF PINK SOCKS AND NO UNDERWEAR AND THREE TUBES OF MASCARA BUT NO SHOES.

PACK PACK PACK

(Or possibly you are all done by now!)

And you have an excellent point in re the subconscious passive-aggressiveness, which is a famously unbearable trait of mine. I promise I will review each entry carefully for bad feeling, and take out all the letters that have any.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE IN THE BIG OLD SCARY WORLD, BOW! <3 :D <3 :D <3 :D

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

I was going to say what Bowdlerised said above. Make sure the not-so-good memories are done with a light touch, and *not even a hint* of grudge-settling. Sounds like a marvellous present - I'm sure she'll love it.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

You will be pleased to know that I am pretty sure there is not a single grudge to be settled in the pages of this present! I didn't even have to work very har to keep them out, as it happens. I was just in the mood to be nice, I think.

:D