First, use her customer service voice.

But you’re nicer.

Your mother has never been too concerned with niceness.

She is kind. You are a well-worn welcome mat.

There are nuances here, nice vs kind, kind vs doormat.

No one knows nuance like a mother.

Except for maybe her daughter.

Next, grow out your grey roots, like she did.

Write about it. That’s not something she would do. The writing about it.

Change your mind, cover them up. She did that too, once.

Her hair is silvery sleek, now, and yours remains a veiled lie.

You did learn the act of veiling from her, though.

Next, but actually first, and always, ache to be a mother.

Not your mother, just a mother.

Play house, from the time you’re a little girl until you’re a grown adult.

When you’re a grown adult, you’ll play house for a while, too.

Then, you track your cycles, collect data, play scientist.

The tests speak in symbols and words: parallel lines, tic tac toe, pregnant.

You feel unfathomably lucky; society whispers, keep quiet.

Society is always whispering keep quiet to women.

On Mother’s Day, you tell your mother she’s going to be a grandmother.

She doesn’t hug you. Her shock fills the room like fumes.

Months later, after you’ve worked through it together, you still wonder why she didn’t hug you.

She is all logic and facts, left brain, Virgo/Libra cusp.

You are all emotion and feelings, right brain, Cancer sun.

Things like weddings and babies seem to affect her differently.

At your sister’s wedding, you cried.

Your mother teased you for crying.

You think about this every day.

Your pregnancy calendar says that now, your baby is developing the ability to remember.

You think about the gift and curse of mothers and children, which is the act of remembering.

You are having a baby boy. Your mother had only girls.

You think about how to teach your son how to honor his feelings, his loved ones’ feelings.

You realize you have to write the blueprint for it.

You were given the blueprint for little girls: Veil. Lie. Ache. Play pretend. Keep quiet.

What blueprint have little boys traditionally been given? You wonder.

Speak up. Take up space. Be honest. Don’t cry.

Your mother teased you for crying.

Keep quiet. Don’t cry.

Maybe the blueprints are two halves of the same whole, you think.

Left brain, right brain.

Tear it all up. Start from scratch. This is how you will become a mother.

Not your mother, just a mother.

Wait… keep some of her with you, though.

Her tenacity. Her full-bodied hugs. Her warm scent, a visceral smell that takes you back to babyhood. 

Your baby is developing the ability to remember.

You decide what to remember, what to forget.

What to learn from, what to pass on.

What to write anew, what to copy/paste.

That’s how you’ll be a mother.