I have your eyes but not your hurt. I sound like you, without the tinge of loss you have in your throat. Is that the problem, Suhani Khan Acharya asks her mother in this startlingly resonant essay.
Suhani, it is hard to believe a 22 year old has written this essay. Not being an ageist here but when I was 22, I was still living like a extended teenager, feeling many feelings against and for my mother. Sometimes I still do, but the depth of this essay hit me so hard. How well have you given voice to most of our collective feelings. I have still not been able to muster the courage to take this prompt and write on it. I will come back to this essay again, reading it twice hasn’t satiated me. As if the whole essay wasn’t evocative enough, this line “The curiosity of our lives is stuck in the words we stifle down our throats, gulping it down like a big sip of chilled, bubbly beer, with one or two burps of missed opportunity,." just unclogged the lump in my own throat. Fantastic, fantastic writing.
Thank you Suhani for writing for all of us who have lived many years and lived wondering if our mother's love us; or if we have been the daughters worthy of being liked and loved. This is a deep, deep essay
My heart broke early in this essay - at 'different versions of herself that she keeps locked in her wooden cupboard,' and danced for joy in the pink study with the black and white sofa. I sat for a while on the wicket chair, and I felt loved! 💖💙🩵
Suhani, a few years ago, I started writing a letter to my mother, one that I still haven’t shared with her. I was struck by how similar it felt in some of what we thought about or asked our mother’s.
Mother-daughter relationships; the impression I’ve generally had was that these are meant be uncomplicated, full of friendliness and friendship, and one of always shared intimacy. I’m realising in so many ways they are, but in other ways, not so simple, full of messiness, sometimes with a lot of hurt and for periods of time without intimacy - and that it’s okay :). I guess each one is unique and that because of the very nature of them, they are always going to have a type of intimacy inbuilt in them, which one can’t find in any other.
I loved these sentences for the sheer imagery and/or emotion they evoked.
“For all the versions of herself that she locks in her wooden cupboard.”
“ Perhaps it’s the female experience, to have multiple versions of yourself, that you wear like a skin suit, every morning a new role, a new person, one you may like or despise.”
“ I read somewhere that mothers and daughters exist as wretched, broken reflections of each other..”
~I would imagine it to be a funny thing, to see a younger you. To witness all the mistakes you made yourself, but this time through an extension of yourself. You can’t tug at the umbilical cord anymore, pulling, “No! Stop it!…You should know better”~ Maar daala, Suhani. And what is this line: "The curiosity of our lives is stuck in the words we stifle down our throats.." This is deep, deep work. The work of feeling, eating the feeling, reporting the smell and the taste of the feeling until you find out what the relationship is like - more questions than answers, love received by offering freely, stepping into the shoes of the other, and seeing yourself from their puzzled eyes. Much, much admiration.
This kind of broke my heart. My mother has been gone for over thirteen years now, but our moments of friendship were rare. My happiest of the most recent memories are of her standing in her bedroom balcony, smiling and waving to me as I return from my walk. I rarely won her approval as an adult._ childhood was much simpler. Beautiful post, Suhani. May you forge a deep friendship with your mother.
Reading this beautiful, frank, nuanced essay sent a rift down the centre of my chest. I was the mother enjoying solitude in the study, and I was also the daughter wanting full and undivided intimacy with her mother. There's a moment in this trajectory when you realise that you are your mother; this was the moment I realised that perhaps my mother is me? Still learning to accept all the complex and contradictory emotions in a mother-daughter relationship, now comforted by the thought that there are people like Suhani, who have felt the way I do 🩷
Take a bow ,Suhani.Evocative and so heartfelt
Suhani, it is hard to believe a 22 year old has written this essay. Not being an ageist here but when I was 22, I was still living like a extended teenager, feeling many feelings against and for my mother. Sometimes I still do, but the depth of this essay hit me so hard. How well have you given voice to most of our collective feelings. I have still not been able to muster the courage to take this prompt and write on it. I will come back to this essay again, reading it twice hasn’t satiated me. As if the whole essay wasn’t evocative enough, this line “The curiosity of our lives is stuck in the words we stifle down our throats, gulping it down like a big sip of chilled, bubbly beer, with one or two burps of missed opportunity,." just unclogged the lump in my own throat. Fantastic, fantastic writing.
Thank you Suhani for writing for all of us who have lived many years and lived wondering if our mother's love us; or if we have been the daughters worthy of being liked and loved. This is a deep, deep essay
My heart broke early in this essay - at 'different versions of herself that she keeps locked in her wooden cupboard,' and danced for joy in the pink study with the black and white sofa. I sat for a while on the wicket chair, and I felt loved! 💖💙🩵
Suhani, a few years ago, I started writing a letter to my mother, one that I still haven’t shared with her. I was struck by how similar it felt in some of what we thought about or asked our mother’s.
Mother-daughter relationships; the impression I’ve generally had was that these are meant be uncomplicated, full of friendliness and friendship, and one of always shared intimacy. I’m realising in so many ways they are, but in other ways, not so simple, full of messiness, sometimes with a lot of hurt and for periods of time without intimacy - and that it’s okay :). I guess each one is unique and that because of the very nature of them, they are always going to have a type of intimacy inbuilt in them, which one can’t find in any other.
I loved these sentences for the sheer imagery and/or emotion they evoked.
“For all the versions of herself that she locks in her wooden cupboard.”
“ Perhaps it’s the female experience, to have multiple versions of yourself, that you wear like a skin suit, every morning a new role, a new person, one you may like or despise.”
“ I read somewhere that mothers and daughters exist as wretched, broken reflections of each other..”
Several other bits that resonated strongly.
Thank you for sharing ❤️.
~I would imagine it to be a funny thing, to see a younger you. To witness all the mistakes you made yourself, but this time through an extension of yourself. You can’t tug at the umbilical cord anymore, pulling, “No! Stop it!…You should know better”~ Maar daala, Suhani. And what is this line: "The curiosity of our lives is stuck in the words we stifle down our throats.." This is deep, deep work. The work of feeling, eating the feeling, reporting the smell and the taste of the feeling until you find out what the relationship is like - more questions than answers, love received by offering freely, stepping into the shoes of the other, and seeing yourself from their puzzled eyes. Much, much admiration.
This kind of broke my heart. My mother has been gone for over thirteen years now, but our moments of friendship were rare. My happiest of the most recent memories are of her standing in her bedroom balcony, smiling and waving to me as I return from my walk. I rarely won her approval as an adult._ childhood was much simpler. Beautiful post, Suhani. May you forge a deep friendship with your mother.
Reading this beautiful, frank, nuanced essay sent a rift down the centre of my chest. I was the mother enjoying solitude in the study, and I was also the daughter wanting full and undivided intimacy with her mother. There's a moment in this trajectory when you realise that you are your mother; this was the moment I realised that perhaps my mother is me? Still learning to accept all the complex and contradictory emotions in a mother-daughter relationship, now comforted by the thought that there are people like Suhani, who have felt the way I do 🩷