Editor’s Note: Mariah is currently directing a short film called Two Heartbeats, click here and here for the previous articles about the project. If you would be willing to follow, share, or chip in a few dollars to the project, it would help the team so much. They are down to their final few days and will not get any of the pledged funds unless they reach the 80% mark. CLICK HERE to learn more about their crowdfunding campaign. Thank you!
Cover image: Image from the most recent shoot for the short film Two Heartbeats.
Nothing gives you empathy for your mother like becoming a mother yourself. You just can’t know the all-encompassing sacrifice that a baby demands until that baby is yours and needs you desperately. It isn’t just about the lost sleep, the round the clock feeding, or the way your body becomes unrecognizable to yourself. It’s also about all the ways your mind is tangled in a host of new concerns and obligations and a worry that could never be more deeply personal than it is now. Even should someone give you a weekend away, some part of your mind will stay with your child every moment. You really can’t ever fully go away again. And to think, someone did all that for me too?
I look at my own mother and my grandmothers though and they seem so grounded, so self-assured. I am the 10th of 11 children and didn’t meet my mother in this life until she was already past so many of the fumbles and insecurities of younger years. It might be easy to mistakenly believe that she had some deeper strength that allowed her to dodge the foibles of early motherhood completely, but strength is something you build, not just something you are born with. And thankfully, my mother is a writer and left a little record of the moments that I would need to relate to in my own first mothering moments.
She wrote a little essay collection while she was pregnant with me. In it, she wrote:
What I did yesterday is usually not on yesterday’s “List of Things to Do”. I feel wonderful each day when I make that list, emptying my brain of all the pieces and fragments and putting them in a clean unthreatening list. This was yesterday’s list:
- Clean out the girls’ dresser drawers.
- Reorganize bedroom closet.
- Vacuum under bed.
- Polish bedroom furniture.
- Mend girls’ clothes
It went on. I could imagine the girl’s bedroom well organized and deeply clean by the end of the day. This is what really happened. When I pulled open the dresser drawer, the knob came off and the screw rolled somewhere underneath the dresser, lost forever like my blue earring and gray coat button. I took the matching screw and went to the hardware store and, while I was there, came upon a wonderful sale on tomato plants. It was only on my way home I realized I’d forgotten the screw. I still felt okay though because I spent the rest of the day planting tomatoes. Last night it froze and the girls’ bedroom is still messy.
Somehow reading about how she felt like she had a handle on her day and then having the actual handle fall off the drawer on the very first task on the list and derail the whole thing comforts me immensely. I do not wish ill on my past, earnest mama, but it stands as a beautiful reminder of why we come to this life in generations and not all at once. She had already had countless such days by the time I was born and could offer some insight as I encountered the first of mine. We do not struggle through the exact stage together, she went a little ahead of me so she could help prepare me for how it would be.
My grandma on my father’s side lived to be 100 years old. I still have the invitation to her 100th birthday party on my fridge and guests ask all the time when the party is even though it happened 6 years ago. She lived a remarkable life and touched countless people. When I dropped by her house on her actual 100th birthday to bring her a birthday banner, there were already several visitors there and several more arrived before I left.
She seemed to me to be someone who had everything figured out and approached life with the kind of boldness, warmth, love, and vibrancy that I aspire to (and seem too often to fall short of). Her funeral featured pictures of her unforgettable experiences; one showed her on a camel, in her 90s, with arms outstretched and the city of Jerusalem laid out in its limestone and gold behind her. But another stuck with me even a little bit more. It was a picture of her holding her first baby. She was standing somewhere heavily wooded, partially facing away and possibly trying (but failing) to turn the baby toward the camera for the picture.
When I first saw that picture, years before, the baby in it was already in his 50s. The mama in it was long past the uncertainties of first motherhood by that point, but when I saw the picture again at the funeral, my own first baby was nearly the same age as hers was in the picture. I saw myself in her and I wanted to step into her shoes to feel closer to her and to hope for a trajectory as wonderful as hers was from there.
So, a few weeks later, we did a copycat photo shoot, where I got to have my own version of that picture:
Some experiences transcend time. Two Heartbeats captures the strength passed from mother to daughter, connecting generations through shared love and sacrifice.
I’ve pondered on this picture a lot in the last few weeks of pre-production on my film project Two Heartbeats. The script, which weaves together the lives of two women from two different eras (the 1950s and today) started out as a chance to explore the contrasting experiences of those times, but ended up being a meditation on something else entirely. What if you could see the strongest woman you know before she was so strong? What if the moment of peak difficulty you’re in right now was one she went through too?
That is what Two Heartbeats is about. It is about the strength we gain from our mothers and grandmothers because they went ahead of us and experienced motherhood first.
It has been such a thrilling project to see come to life. If you’re so inclined, we are trying to reach the greenlight on our funding (80% mark) before the time runs out. Even a small donation makes a big difference. And if not, hitting the “follow” button on the project will help you keep in touch with its progress and opens up additional resources from the site once we have 250 followers.
CLICK HERE to see the campaign and learn more about how you can help make this project happen.
