If my friends have to describe me in one word, I would guess that most of them default to saying that I’m nice. I’m agreeable and polite from the Taiwanese education that raised me, for the most part. But one person who probably doesn’t see this is my mother. She thinks that I’m a hedgehog that stings her when she wants to hug me; I think that she’s a hopeless romantic who cannot bear the weight of this world. Sometimes we wonder how we’re related.
My mother likes to do things her own unique ways. She sheds tears sometimes as a result of her experimental attempts at baking. When I share a news article with her, she counters them with niche knowledge from questionable sources. She wanders off in her head, and I feel like my ideas are never heard because her thoughts have moved on by the time I finish speaking. The American side of me also upholds productivity. When she’s sad, I coldly tells her that she’s losing to her own demons, and puts on my AirPods to resume my morning workout. I wish she would be more like Nike and “just do it.” Just make the recipe she’s been wanting to try. Just pursue her art career. Just publish her writing.
She says that my fierceness and resilience came from my father, but perhaps they came from her tenderness. She nurtured a field of soil full of love and encouragement. Out came a spiky rose. I am the rose (this is just a symbol I promise), and she is the Little Prince who never forgets to take care of me, even when I sting and scream.
Confucianism compares women and men to yin and yang, but I see my mother and me in this duality. Her inner child and shyness gave room to my reason and ambition. She doesn’t think that she’s powerful because she’s not a stereotypical “woman of steel” in 2020, but I see an immense amount of courage within her for her sentimental mind. She is vulnerable in a very brave way, and her diaristic, escapist essays on Facebook got me through some stressful college nights.
The ultimate dilemma is that her romanticism nourished me into a feisty, tenacious child who questions her mother’s life-style of a soft dreamer. We now have clashing ideas of womanhood, but I want her to know that she’s the reason why I work hard, She’s always going to be the best freaking writer and artist I have ever met, and she’s deeply inspired those around her.
