Good morning Rona. We both belong to the kinship of the exacting mothers of the red pen. How I dreaded every school project, wherein she would insert her demanding self. The fault finder. I was uncertain I could manage the smallest of things on my own, when I escaped the house at age 17. At UC Berkeley I felt like an imposter. I had hand carried my transcript over at the last minute, having been pushed into Whitman, where I had threatened to major in skiing.
Recovery from feelings of inadequacy is a slow torment. I still lament lacking the courage to submit work for consideration in a class led by Lillian Hellman. At the end of the quarter, I like you was there at a party given in her honor. She held court in the small room with tales of Dash Hammett. I loved her for having the courage to not marry. When I said goodbye to her at the end of the party, faltering as I explained I had not submitted anything, she did for me what Tillie did for you. She took my hand. She told me never to let my doubts stop me again. “You are a fine writer,” she told me. I wondered only a fraction of a second how she could possibly know, then as you might reach for the brass ring from the merry-go-round, I seized her words and took them into the bottom of that place inside where our own words grow. I had been given nourishment.
Gail, thank you for sharing this resonant story. You saw Lillian Hellman as few did. In most accounts, she’s a terror. But some of the most terrifying people have a gift for mentorship. I’m glad she arrived to mentor you in a moment of need.
Wow. Yes. I, too, had a very powerful professional mother, but her method wasn't to correct me, but to diminish me directly. I had a super-clever(Asperger's?) older brother and a super clever younger sister (published in the Atlantic magazine in her twenties, but then died in a car crash) and my mother said to me, when I was in my teens, "It's perfectly ok to become a home-maker". So I never knew I was clever until years and years later, despite doing well in school etc etc. In other words, I didn't have a Tillie Olsen in my life. When my mother eventually got Alzheimer's, it's a terrible thing to say, but I felt relieved, I said she was 'de-clawed'. My saving grace was my father, who did believe in me but probably didn't say so enough.
Ann, how terribly sad and hard. I wonder why it is that some parents decide early on to cast one child (or several) as brilliant and heroic, another as a nobody. But here you are, writing your truth. As for your father, I suspect your mother cowed him.
I replied hours ago, but it didn't 'take' for some reason. Just to say that my father wasn't cowed – he loved people of all kinds, backgrounds, ages and that included his own children. He loved taking us places and showing us things and quoting Shakespeare to us, so he made up for the rather dismissive attitude of my mother, although it STILL took a long time for me to believe in myself. Yes, it is sad, but I had a good life nonetheless.
Thank you for your persistence, Ann. As I look at the full and satisfying lives of many people I know, it's striking how few had ideal childhoods or exemplary parents.
I think that those of us with unhappy or mixed (I would not describe mine as completely unhappy) childhoods probably start to ruminate early, if they are that way inclined. I used to watch and think a lot of the time. I thought everybody did that and it took me some years to realise that my watching and thinking and reflecting was rather unusual.
But I must add that i was also a less than ideal parent, but my two children have turned out rather well despite that fact.
Rona, your writing is just magical. I was right there with you every moment of this piece, and when Tillie Olsen sat beside you and took your hand, well, tears fell. When you wrote about your amazing mother, tears fell. And when you wrote about the moment you knew you might finally set aside the work you did for others and find your own voice, your own need, your own calling, well...tears fell.
Please tell us more. And don't worry. I can take it. ❤️
Thank you, Ramona. I’ve shared an earlier version of this one, and the Substack community inspires me to go deeper. Some, like you, have long experience with the seasons of creative blooming; many others are still wondering when and how—and if— it’s going to happen. I sense an appetite for a story-driven conversation about this. I don’t do writers’ prompts but I have more than enough stories. It’s always bracing to meet you in this virtual garden.
Rona, where do I start. This is the most powerful essay I have read since I started my own Substack at the beginning of November. It speaks to me in more ways than you can imagine.
I read Tillie Olsen when I was an adolescent, and she spoke to me as well. I had a powerful mother, too. But she was the iron, I was the cloth. It takes years to escape that scorching, that flattening. And as those who have experienced this level of emotional violence do, I sought other heavy objects to put myself in front of. Finally I didn’t need them; I’d learned I could do that work myself.
Your mother died at age 67. That is the age I am now.
I had moments of triumph and success; those moments were interrupted. It’s taken me a very long time to realize that an interruption is not a failure. It’s why I call my site Writer, interrupted. You were one of my first readers at the Substack it took me so long to start, and you continue to give me the encouragement I need to keep going. It feels like the pat on the hand Tillie gave you.
Thank you for your kindness and generosity in sharing your stories and your wisdom.
Mary, I'm glad to pat your hand from afar. In the years of interruption you were gathering not only courage but knowledge. Now you are blooming here. No more irons bearing down on you. Tillie Olsen's use of the iron fascinates me, by the way. What a powerful symbol of the insidious way culture turns mothers into flatteners, most often without their awareness, even as they care for their families. When George Saunders taught "I Stand Here Ironing" in Story Club," I brought up the iron but no one in this group of astute and passionate readers took any interest.
How interesting about the iron. That is the image that comes to mind immediately when I think of Tillie, and in many other areas of my life as well. It is so vivid. I started a bit later in Story Club, so I didn’t see the comments on that story, but I would have been waving my hand, saying Yes, yes, yes!
I agree with you about mothers in our culture. My own mother had a complicated background, I was the only daughter, etc. But I’m far from alone. She gave me many gifts as well. And lots of material.
Mary, I remember seeing your comments in Story Club. Although you can't search within Story Club, you can find the discussion of "I Stand Here Ironing" on Google. I think it was back in 2022. Highly recommended.
I will do that! I’m honored that you remember me from Story Club. I wrote as Mary M in the beginning, and it was only when I started writing my own column that I became Mary Roblyn all over the place. I really need to go back to the beginning with Story Club. So much richness there.
It’s rare, Rona, that I read an essay that evokes such strong emotions in me—that leaves me in tears.
My story: My mother grew up a poor, motherless child during the great depression. Young and pregnant and with little education, she married my father (another story). She was painfully shy but intelligent, creative, and wise. Her own wonderful talents would never bloom; the ironing board, washing machine, or kitchen sink would forever hold her hostage. Her deepest desire was that they bloom in me.
Sitting for hours on the basement steps watching her wring mountains upon mountains of laundry, I’d listen to the happy and sad stories of her life. She never sat and talked—no time for that. Well, actually, she never sat; conversations only happened during housework.
Her two most often repeated words of advice: “Get a good education. Never depend on a man to make your living.”
I followed her advice. Then when I had my own family, more and more my life came to resemble my mother’s, while my hard-earned degrees sat idle. I raged against the housework, wanting to scream and often did. Hadn’t my mother warned me?
Happy ending: Years later, now in my seventh decade, I’m blooming more than ever. The line that brought me to tears was Tillie’s: “Only help her to believe—help it make so there is cause for her to believe that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.”
With a title like that, Rona, how could I not read the book? BTW: I've read both of your books and most posts; this was wonderfully written. I don't think your mother would have much, if anything, to mark up here!
Thank you. I’ve ordered a copy of My Mother’s Daughter (used, I’m poor 🙂) and kindle and library copies of Tillie Olsen’s work. I think you inspired me. At 67 I’m my overbearing mother’s caretaker. She lives with me but has mellowed some w age. I’m still working toward finding my own voice but am confident that finally I’m getting there.
Beautifully written. So many things to comment on.
Already primed for tears after having just watched a video of young Tracy Chapman playing "Fast Car" at Wembly Stadium all those years ago (she went onstage as a stop-gap when Stevie Wonder couldn't play, her career launched by accident of fate), Tillie Olson's hand on yours opened the spigot again.
I'd been thinking about how "Fast Car" somehow touched nearly everyone who heard it, and how perhaps the line, "Leave tonight or live and die this way," was something many people could relate to.
Her song, like your piece, is about what it takes to heed the call of your inner voice to "be someone", to be the the someone that deep down you know you can be if you can just get yourself out of where you are stuck, to be more than Olsen's "enough left to live by." It often takes even more than courage. It often also takes some catalyzing event at just the right moment, like the passing of your mother at the moment you had an opportunity to reach for something higher. Something you might not have done if her shadow had not been lifted.
I am not sure what the catalyst was for my own new creative beginning--starting my Substack at the age of 61. A sudden moment of liberation welled up in me, and for once it did not subside before I could embody it. My inner self found a way to meet me in the outer world, and I felt no fear making that first post. Perhaps this is just the beginning. Like Tillie's hand on yours. And Rona, like your written hand on mine. Thank you.
I read your first book and then ordered a signed copy from you to give to my sister. I remember the wonder abd acute discomfort I felt as I read it but also the feeling that here was someone who would understand why I'd waited so long to try writing theayvid wanted to. I'm still working on it! This was a great post.
Rona, I love to sit at your feet for these stories. I didn’t realize how much I was craving the testimony and wisdom of someone further down the literary road. Thank you for embodying a woman who has braved her way past her own barricades. I have often thought I can’t really tell the stories of my own life till some of the costars (family) in them have passed. It feels pragmatic rather than suppressive, but maybe that’s me adjusting to my own imposed limits? I’m not intending to smear anyone, but I know I would write freer if I wasn’t thinking through their filters. Until then: fiction and narrative nonfiction that is more introspective. PS sparked to check out both Tillie Olsen and your book about your mom. <3
Thank you, Esther. It's true that some writers have paid a terrible price for publishing family stories. I recall at least one ugly campaign to take a writer down on Goodreads. Remember, there's a difference between writing and publishing. You can always write and keep the stories private, shared only within a small circle of friends.--although, as Gail says below, you might decide not to wait for family members to die or become who they will never be.
Thank you, Gail and Rona both. It’s true people can see themselves in anything (that feels pretty human). It’s also true there’s a difference between publishing and writing—I have certainly experienced a lot of power in writing things down for my own or limited viewing. Realizing as i write this that by and large my family have been incredibly supportive of my work or have refrained from commenting on their disagreements, so it’s possible this is mostly a barrier I’ve constructed in my own head. Illuminating! Thank you.
Family talk to one another and some bitter person can rally others. That happened to me. No one read beyond the free Amazon preview. It was when I realized the single star review came from someone who hadn’t read any of it that I realized it wasn’t anything I published but the fact that I had written anything at all.
Hello Esther. I learned the hard way that one’s family will see themselves in anything you write. It can be excruciating for all but as writers we sometimes have family who at their core are not our supporters. I choose to keep on writing. It is not as if I can wait for the next generation to either pass on or grow into people they are not.
From the very beginning, this piece gave me wonder. I cannot imagine being in Atwood's presence, let alone the others (and your mother!) Great piece. I moved up from free to paid subscriber.
I've been reading your writing for a long time. Your words and voice speak to what it is to be human in an unpredictable world. In so doing, you give us permission to voice our own stories. Thank you for shining a light on what is possible.
One International women's Day. I read As I Stand Here Ironing at an ironing board set up on stage. I was a single parent of littles at the time but knew this truth. Wow, to have been in that room.
Tillie Olsen planted lots of seeds, didn't she? But to have actually met her is amazing. Love your description of this encounter and how she sat down next to you and inscribed your copy of her book.
I had not heard of Tillie Olsen and now will be looking her up. What a wonderful gesture that was. What makes a person reach out with some small kindness or encouragement, and why don't we do it more? Thanks for your beautiful essay that invites such questions.
Thanks so much, Stephanie. From what I've read, Tillie Olsen was generous with her support. I try to pass on her gift as best I can. Showing up here once a week is part of my commitment.
Good morning Rona. We both belong to the kinship of the exacting mothers of the red pen. How I dreaded every school project, wherein she would insert her demanding self. The fault finder. I was uncertain I could manage the smallest of things on my own, when I escaped the house at age 17. At UC Berkeley I felt like an imposter. I had hand carried my transcript over at the last minute, having been pushed into Whitman, where I had threatened to major in skiing.
Recovery from feelings of inadequacy is a slow torment. I still lament lacking the courage to submit work for consideration in a class led by Lillian Hellman. At the end of the quarter, I like you was there at a party given in her honor. She held court in the small room with tales of Dash Hammett. I loved her for having the courage to not marry. When I said goodbye to her at the end of the party, faltering as I explained I had not submitted anything, she did for me what Tillie did for you. She took my hand. She told me never to let my doubts stop me again. “You are a fine writer,” she told me. I wondered only a fraction of a second how she could possibly know, then as you might reach for the brass ring from the merry-go-round, I seized her words and took them into the bottom of that place inside where our own words grow. I had been given nourishment.
Gail, thank you for sharing this resonant story. You saw Lillian Hellman as few did. In most accounts, she’s a terror. But some of the most terrifying people have a gift for mentorship. I’m glad she arrived to mentor you in a moment of need.
Wow. Yes. I, too, had a very powerful professional mother, but her method wasn't to correct me, but to diminish me directly. I had a super-clever(Asperger's?) older brother and a super clever younger sister (published in the Atlantic magazine in her twenties, but then died in a car crash) and my mother said to me, when I was in my teens, "It's perfectly ok to become a home-maker". So I never knew I was clever until years and years later, despite doing well in school etc etc. In other words, I didn't have a Tillie Olsen in my life. When my mother eventually got Alzheimer's, it's a terrible thing to say, but I felt relieved, I said she was 'de-clawed'. My saving grace was my father, who did believe in me but probably didn't say so enough.
Ann, how terribly sad and hard. I wonder why it is that some parents decide early on to cast one child (or several) as brilliant and heroic, another as a nobody. But here you are, writing your truth. As for your father, I suspect your mother cowed him.
I replied hours ago, but it didn't 'take' for some reason. Just to say that my father wasn't cowed – he loved people of all kinds, backgrounds, ages and that included his own children. He loved taking us places and showing us things and quoting Shakespeare to us, so he made up for the rather dismissive attitude of my mother, although it STILL took a long time for me to believe in myself. Yes, it is sad, but I had a good life nonetheless.
Thank you for your persistence, Ann. As I look at the full and satisfying lives of many people I know, it's striking how few had ideal childhoods or exemplary parents.
I think that those of us with unhappy or mixed (I would not describe mine as completely unhappy) childhoods probably start to ruminate early, if they are that way inclined. I used to watch and think a lot of the time. I thought everybody did that and it took me some years to realise that my watching and thinking and reflecting was rather unusual.
But I must add that i was also a less than ideal parent, but my two children have turned out rather well despite that fact.
Rona, your writing is just magical. I was right there with you every moment of this piece, and when Tillie Olsen sat beside you and took your hand, well, tears fell. When you wrote about your amazing mother, tears fell. And when you wrote about the moment you knew you might finally set aside the work you did for others and find your own voice, your own need, your own calling, well...tears fell.
Please tell us more. And don't worry. I can take it. ❤️
Thank you, Ramona. I’ve shared an earlier version of this one, and the Substack community inspires me to go deeper. Some, like you, have long experience with the seasons of creative blooming; many others are still wondering when and how—and if— it’s going to happen. I sense an appetite for a story-driven conversation about this. I don’t do writers’ prompts but I have more than enough stories. It’s always bracing to meet you in this virtual garden.
Rona, you are my Tillie Olsen. Thank you for this story. ❤️
What an honor!
Rona, where do I start. This is the most powerful essay I have read since I started my own Substack at the beginning of November. It speaks to me in more ways than you can imagine.
I read Tillie Olsen when I was an adolescent, and she spoke to me as well. I had a powerful mother, too. But she was the iron, I was the cloth. It takes years to escape that scorching, that flattening. And as those who have experienced this level of emotional violence do, I sought other heavy objects to put myself in front of. Finally I didn’t need them; I’d learned I could do that work myself.
Your mother died at age 67. That is the age I am now.
I had moments of triumph and success; those moments were interrupted. It’s taken me a very long time to realize that an interruption is not a failure. It’s why I call my site Writer, interrupted. You were one of my first readers at the Substack it took me so long to start, and you continue to give me the encouragement I need to keep going. It feels like the pat on the hand Tillie gave you.
Thank you for your kindness and generosity in sharing your stories and your wisdom.
Mary, I'm glad to pat your hand from afar. In the years of interruption you were gathering not only courage but knowledge. Now you are blooming here. No more irons bearing down on you. Tillie Olsen's use of the iron fascinates me, by the way. What a powerful symbol of the insidious way culture turns mothers into flatteners, most often without their awareness, even as they care for their families. When George Saunders taught "I Stand Here Ironing" in Story Club," I brought up the iron but no one in this group of astute and passionate readers took any interest.
How interesting about the iron. That is the image that comes to mind immediately when I think of Tillie, and in many other areas of my life as well. It is so vivid. I started a bit later in Story Club, so I didn’t see the comments on that story, but I would have been waving my hand, saying Yes, yes, yes!
I agree with you about mothers in our culture. My own mother had a complicated background, I was the only daughter, etc. But I’m far from alone. She gave me many gifts as well. And lots of material.
Mary, I remember seeing your comments in Story Club. Although you can't search within Story Club, you can find the discussion of "I Stand Here Ironing" on Google. I think it was back in 2022. Highly recommended.
I will do that! I’m honored that you remember me from Story Club. I wrote as Mary M in the beginning, and it was only when I started writing my own column that I became Mary Roblyn all over the place. I really need to go back to the beginning with Story Club. So much richness there.
It’s rare, Rona, that I read an essay that evokes such strong emotions in me—that leaves me in tears.
My story: My mother grew up a poor, motherless child during the great depression. Young and pregnant and with little education, she married my father (another story). She was painfully shy but intelligent, creative, and wise. Her own wonderful talents would never bloom; the ironing board, washing machine, or kitchen sink would forever hold her hostage. Her deepest desire was that they bloom in me.
Sitting for hours on the basement steps watching her wring mountains upon mountains of laundry, I’d listen to the happy and sad stories of her life. She never sat and talked—no time for that. Well, actually, she never sat; conversations only happened during housework.
Her two most often repeated words of advice: “Get a good education. Never depend on a man to make your living.”
I followed her advice. Then when I had my own family, more and more my life came to resemble my mother’s, while my hard-earned degrees sat idle. I raged against the housework, wanting to scream and often did. Hadn’t my mother warned me?
Happy ending: Years later, now in my seventh decade, I’m blooming more than ever. The line that brought me to tears was Tillie’s: “Only help her to believe—help it make so there is cause for her to believe that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.”
Thus began the tears. My mother did just that.
Lynette, this is beautiful. What a story you have to tell. I hope you will read “I Stand Here Ironing.” I’ve linked to the full text.
With a title like that, Rona, how could I not read the book? BTW: I've read both of your books and most posts; this was wonderfully written. I don't think your mother would have much, if anything, to mark up here!
If she did, she might encounter some resistance.
Whew ... just found the edit button myself for typo correcting.
Thank you. I’ve ordered a copy of My Mother’s Daughter (used, I’m poor 🙂) and kindle and library copies of Tillie Olsen’s work. I think you inspired me. At 67 I’m my overbearing mother’s caretaker. She lives with me but has mellowed some w age. I’m still working toward finding my own voice but am confident that finally I’m getting there.
Good for you, Debbie. Never be embarrassed about buying a used copy of a book. Lots of us have to be careful how we spend our money.
Beautifully written. So many things to comment on.
Already primed for tears after having just watched a video of young Tracy Chapman playing "Fast Car" at Wembly Stadium all those years ago (she went onstage as a stop-gap when Stevie Wonder couldn't play, her career launched by accident of fate), Tillie Olson's hand on yours opened the spigot again.
I'd been thinking about how "Fast Car" somehow touched nearly everyone who heard it, and how perhaps the line, "Leave tonight or live and die this way," was something many people could relate to.
Her song, like your piece, is about what it takes to heed the call of your inner voice to "be someone", to be the the someone that deep down you know you can be if you can just get yourself out of where you are stuck, to be more than Olsen's "enough left to live by." It often takes even more than courage. It often also takes some catalyzing event at just the right moment, like the passing of your mother at the moment you had an opportunity to reach for something higher. Something you might not have done if her shadow had not been lifted.
I am not sure what the catalyst was for my own new creative beginning--starting my Substack at the age of 61. A sudden moment of liberation welled up in me, and for once it did not subside before I could embody it. My inner self found a way to meet me in the outer world, and I felt no fear making that first post. Perhaps this is just the beginning. Like Tillie's hand on yours. And Rona, like your written hand on mine. Thank you.
Yes, just the beginning. Someday it will be your turn to place your encouraging hand on someone else's.
I read your first book and then ordered a signed copy from you to give to my sister. I remember the wonder abd acute discomfort I felt as I read it but also the feeling that here was someone who would understand why I'd waited so long to try writing theayvid wanted to. I'm still working on it! This was a great post.
Glad you enjoyed it, Elizabeth. Not many people found their way to that book and it was never published in the U.S.
Rona, I love to sit at your feet for these stories. I didn’t realize how much I was craving the testimony and wisdom of someone further down the literary road. Thank you for embodying a woman who has braved her way past her own barricades. I have often thought I can’t really tell the stories of my own life till some of the costars (family) in them have passed. It feels pragmatic rather than suppressive, but maybe that’s me adjusting to my own imposed limits? I’m not intending to smear anyone, but I know I would write freer if I wasn’t thinking through their filters. Until then: fiction and narrative nonfiction that is more introspective. PS sparked to check out both Tillie Olsen and your book about your mom. <3
Thank you, Esther. It's true that some writers have paid a terrible price for publishing family stories. I recall at least one ugly campaign to take a writer down on Goodreads. Remember, there's a difference between writing and publishing. You can always write and keep the stories private, shared only within a small circle of friends.--although, as Gail says below, you might decide not to wait for family members to die or become who they will never be.
Thank you, Gail and Rona both. It’s true people can see themselves in anything (that feels pretty human). It’s also true there’s a difference between publishing and writing—I have certainly experienced a lot of power in writing things down for my own or limited viewing. Realizing as i write this that by and large my family have been incredibly supportive of my work or have refrained from commenting on their disagreements, so it’s possible this is mostly a barrier I’ve constructed in my own head. Illuminating! Thank you.
Family talk to one another and some bitter person can rally others. That happened to me. No one read beyond the free Amazon preview. It was when I realized the single star review came from someone who hadn’t read any of it that I realized it wasn’t anything I published but the fact that I had written anything at all.
Oh, dear. Happens often, I fear.
Hello Esther. I learned the hard way that one’s family will see themselves in anything you write. It can be excruciating for all but as writers we sometimes have family who at their core are not our supporters. I choose to keep on writing. It is not as if I can wait for the next generation to either pass on or grow into people they are not.
From the very beginning, this piece gave me wonder. I cannot imagine being in Atwood's presence, let alone the others (and your mother!) Great piece. I moved up from free to paid subscriber.
Dear Amy, you’ve been my virtual reader and friend for some time now. I’m deeply grateful for your support.
I've been reading your writing for a long time. Your words and voice speak to what it is to be human in an unpredictable world. In so doing, you give us permission to voice our own stories. Thank you for shining a light on what is possible.
Just as I hoped, Julie. Good to know.
One International women's Day. I read As I Stand Here Ironing at an ironing board set up on stage. I was a single parent of littles at the time but knew this truth. Wow, to have been in that room.
Oh, to have heard you read this magnificent story, dear Sheree.
Tillie Olsen planted lots of seeds, didn't she? But to have actually met her is amazing. Love your description of this encounter and how she sat down next to you and inscribed your copy of her book.
Thank you, Jill. It was a rare privilege. I still haven’t finished SILENCES but the inscription says it all.
I’ve been meaning to add Tillie to the short story survey I’ve been working on; this wonderful piece is reminding me to move her up the list. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it, Karl.
I had not heard of Tillie Olsen and now will be looking her up. What a wonderful gesture that was. What makes a person reach out with some small kindness or encouragement, and why don't we do it more? Thanks for your beautiful essay that invites such questions.
Thanks so much, Stephanie. From what I've read, Tillie Olsen was generous with her support. I try to pass on her gift as best I can. Showing up here once a week is part of my commitment.