March 12, 2010
The Love Ceiling by Jean Davies Okimoto is a heartfelt and genuine look at family, and at the pivotal -- and often thankless -- role that the mother plays in nurturing along the members of her clan. The title refers to the limits that mothers feel as they pursue their own interests and careers: the needs of the ones they love always seem to come first. As a mother I recognize the ceiling but I wouldn't trade one member of my family for passage through to the other side, and neither, I'm betting, would Okimoto.
Annie, the main character in the novel, is in her sixties, and this fact alone made this novel an engaging read. I've read far too few novels about older-midlife women (Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello comes to mind and a number of mystery series starring cranky but persistent older women) and perhaps the plus-60 woman who is vibrant, sexual, and searching for meaning in her life is a modern phenomena. We're living longer, working longer, and actively playing longer. What is very interesting is to see the wisdom from years of living (and for Annie, years of therapy as well) with the nerves of youth ("What will I be when I grow up?"). A person in their sixties can feel the same angst of youth and added in with the angst is the pressure of time. When I was in my twenties, I had a whole lifetime to fulfill a huge number of dreams. Now I'm three years from fifty and I know that I have to refine my goals and get moving on them.
Annie is not only mother and wife to a needy family (all families are needy for food, comfort, and safety-netting), a working woman and an aspiring painter, but also daughter to an overbearing and selfish father; a famous artist himself, he slammed down her talent when she was young and now that she is much older, he still orders her around without thinking twice. Annie knows she finally has to stand up to him and let him know she must be treated with respect. Respect is the core message of the book: no one should treat another person, whether mother, lover, spouse, or child, with anything less than respect. Respect goes not only for all the things one person does for another person but respect for who each of us is, inside and out, and perhaps most importantly, for the dreams that each of us have. Mothers by necessity have to put dreams on hold while raising children and caring for a family but on hold doesn't mean diminished or let go. A dream deferred indefinitely may end up like a raisin in the sun (see below) but a dream deferred for a few years down the road can still be realized. Better to fulfill dreams of youth in your sixties (seventies, eighties or nineties) than never fulfill them at all.
A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
|
|