Seeing my dream woman again
I came back from my family members' home and I'm in awe yet again. I wanted to write these notes as soon as I came back home, so they will be messy and raw.
As a researcher, I am inspired by books and articles. But I am also inspired by nature, non-humans, and fellow humans outside academia. She is an elderly Danish woman in her 80s. She used to be a teacher of the French language. In her youth, she worked on humanitarian projects abroad and lived in Paris for several years. She has three children and two stepchildren.
Her stories are wonderful and thought-provoking. We talk about parenthood and how stuff floods humans' childhoods. Endless toys, gifts, activities, devices, even status items. She recalls her own childhood.
Her biggest wish for her birthday was a fresh cucumber. I am reminded of my own childhood. When I was young, we lived in a remote, rural area due to my stepfather's job. We lived in and with nature and ate mostly seasonal food. In winter, I was often thinking how nice it would be to have a fresh cucumber. At times, my mother and stepfather would bring one home, and it was divided into small pieces and distributed among the family members. For my birthdays, I would often receive normal gifs. Lego, dolls, clothes. But there is only one object that I remember wanting a lot. It was a large chocolate bar.
I am telling her that there are so many things that I worry about when I think of becoming a parent. How do I protect my child from capitalism's influence as much as possible? How do I avoid stuff and the pressure to do things constantly? How do I practise slow parenting in the modern world? She smiles and tells me a story. She was young, 7 months pregnant with her first child. She was alone in a country where protests were unfolding, and she couldn't buy sugar and milk. She took a flight back home to Denmark, with a suitcase and a bouquet of flowers. She says she could leave those flowers, but she was so grateful for them that she wanted to take them all the way home. I say to her that she is a strong and inspiring woman, and that I am so grateful to have her in my life. She says that she wants me to know that I should not fear. We continue talking about different parenting in our world of excess. She says that she and her husband are too old to start a revolution, and that it is up to us, young persons, to practise things differently. She says I will learn a lot on my path, and most likely experience setbacks and make mistakes, but the only thing I can do is try.
She tells me that in the beginning, when she became a parent, she and her first husband were not wealthy. She would make clothes for her child from pieces of fabric that she had. She knitted a lot. She says that knitted clothes last a long time. It reminds me of my own childhood. My mother would knit a sweater for me, and as I grew older, she would unravel them and knit another sweater from the same yarn.