Day 9: All shut-eye ain't sleep. And all goodbye ain't gone. "The Other Mother"

Ann-Marie:

I spend a great deal of time encouraging people to jump into "the conversation." Some days it's about keeping a brand presence in the media stream, other days it's about speaking up to make difference in a community, and still others it's about surrounding oneself with the people that make the greatest difference in your life.

The deaths of both my mother and sister left huge voids in my life, but the unconditional love and words of my own "other mothers" have filled that space with a great deal of abundance. Some years, the only sense of family I had. And now years later as my father has found his own way past grief and relinquished a strictly conservative point of view I find that "rememoir" serves as a catalyst for healing a relationship that lay dormant for way too many years.  Many of the conversations I've shared publicly in reconnecting with my father are couched in humor...as two individuals in later life walking past what they don't know and can't remember has its levity in bonding. I imagine the stories and conversations the readers find in the book keep Bryne alive for you. We tend to do that with the people we hold dear.

Teresa:

I never tired of listening to Byrne's stories.  Over  the course of living with her when she had the blood clot, her memories flowed into mine.  Especially the love stories involving Duncan.  I was so young and so yearning for examples of
real, mutual, respectful love that I made them into a fairy tale.  It was naive, at first.  But gradually I realized that Bryne had choreographed parts of the story. At first I felt cheated when I learned that Duncan wasn't what she had led me to believe (that's as much as I can say without spoiling the ending for those of you who haven't read it yet.) Let's just say I figured it out before it was too late.  Here's a moment from a difficult conversation we had on the porch, over a glass of wine.

"We're always," Byrne started to say before she shifted back to past tense. "We were always joined at the hip and people used to tease me, asking if Duncan always held my hand or if it was just for show." I was surprised Bryne cared what others thought. "I knew we were equals, true partners in life's journey.  But I got all the attention and he got lost in my shuffle..."

At last I could participate in the conversation. I knew what she needed to hear. So this is how that conversation ended.

"The Gullah have a saying," I said to Bryne. I could sense she wanted to be alone with the regret that kept Duncan close. It was time for me to kiss her cheeks and say goodnight. "It goes something like this. All shut-eye ain't sleep. and all goodbye ain't gone."

I came to know the magnitude and depth of this love that had once seemed almost unreal.  Writing this memoir was like having a conversation with Bryne ~ along with all her collected daughters.  I interviewed as many of them as I could for the book and the amazing thing was we all remembered the same core stories of affirmation and love. Then when I started pouring through Bryne's papers at the Beaufort County Library's Special Collection I found them again, in newspaper and magazine articles.  She had seduced almost every reporter she met, not just me!

It's funny, for years after her death I found myself wishing I could share experiences with Bryne. I missed her in so many ways.  But writing it all down, digging deeper into all the conversations we had on her screened porch stage, has helped close the grieving cycle. She's with me now, listening in on every conversation, comment, tweet and book signing.  And I'm certain she's loving every minute of it.

The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about your most meaningful conversations...

Day 7: Lowcountry where Other Mothers thrive

Ann-Marie:

We live in very special places. I in Port Royal, you in Beaufort. A world away from so much else and yet close enough to know the universe.

The port of Port Royal, SC

Writing about the area in context of the story naturally translates into that much of the book is about living here. How could one NOT ~ finding oneself surrounded by the simpleness of time bathed in sunlight and coated in the salt tears of a clock standing still. It is the Slowcountry. One I relish for its lack of routine other than the tide, fishing, boating, cocktail hours and natural escapes.

Teresa:

We are jackpot-lucky to live in this place, and I think Bryne felt the same way. She and Duncan were expats in their own country and I think it's important that they chose this place to live and work.  I so connect with that that I wanted to do that justice.   So the Lowcountry, in "The Other Mother" is more than just a location, it's a central character.

Duncan, in particular, so needed to be near water that he was willing to return to the same stretch of coastline where his childhood had been ruined (he was born in Charleston). Byrne probably would have been just as happy to live out her life in Santa Fe, where she actually founded the Byrne Miller Dance Theatre. She found the desert mountains freeling and limitless. It was her daughter Jane that we have to thank for the Bryne Miller Dance Theatre moved to Beaufort.  This daughter of rebellious, Vietnam War protesting bohemian parents joined the Marine Corps! When Jane and her husband at the time were stationed at MCAS Beaufort, Ducan and Byrne followed her here and made it her home.

For me, the water in particular is what makes this place so special.  I first started writing about it in the "Transfer of Grace: Images of the Lowcountry." The way the tides are so reliable, so undefeatable, gives me a sense of perspective. Nothing we stress about in any given moment will be the same six hours from now.
narrative essay that accompanies my husband's photographs in

"Twice a day the waters reverse course and flood the marshy inlets once again.  All that is lost returns."

I still feel the magic and the majesty of the Lowcountry every time I come back from a road trip and drive over the Whale Branch River.  Again from the book ~

"For a brief thrilling moment, the Whale Branch River Bridge releases all who travel over it from gravity.  You look down from an Osprey's eye view into a fish-full ribbon of life.  the water is a shimmering membrane, wide and porous.  Salt and sweet, past and present glid in opposite directions."


The Other Mother: a rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about what surrounds you...

Day 6: Dance, Movement and Words make "The Other Mother"

Ann-Marie:

As the voices increase in number during the blog tour, it's a must to incorporate their words into the dialog.

Each voice however different, literary or not, choreographed or not makes it plain that the essence of what we all know holds to be true. That life is transitional. That life happens. That there are individuals that aid our awakening to new points of light. It's the voice of an author like Teresa Bruce that aids us in wrapping our life memories around a common experience.


Today I frame my thoughts around what one thing does a reader take away from reading the book.


Heather Desaulniers, another blogger on #THEOTHERMOTHER blog tour adds another trail in the other mother storyline.  As a dance critic, but also a former dancer and choreographer she lends a contemporary voice. A voice of and with dance and about life..."The Other Mother: a rememoir" proclaims that human life is a work of verbs, both active and inactive: of doing, of believing, of deciding, of being." Read her blog entry this week.


For Beth Lathrop a most welcomed contributor to the tour, the "one thing" comes in the recollection of her own experience of another mother who stepped in and loved her. Her "Other Mother" entry this week tells us about the words her other mother relayed that stay with her, reminding her of her love, a mother she lost and who she is today. "You are a damned fine woman, just like yo' mama."

Teresa:

I'm thrilled just to be able to introduce Byrne Miller to people who didn't happen to cross paths with her incredible life. And there are so many movements in "The Other Mother: a rememoir" that its impossible not to find one dance that gets your feet tapping.  For most women, I suppose the big takeaway is the awareness of how many other mothers we need and cherish.

The title of the book gives it away ~ I could have called it "my" other mother but Byrne was an other mother to so many collected sons and daughters that I couldn't claim her all to myself.  Other mothers rarely stop with one ~ they have so much wisdom and wit and passion that their impact is limitless.

The amazing thing was realizing, as I wrote the book how many other mothers come to life in its pages. There's Suzanne Larson ~ a familiar to WJWJ public television viewers, and for countless other reporters who grew up under her tutelage.

I wish I'd seen it at the time, but I was more other mother than wife to Sonny -- the man I brought with me to Beaufort the first time.  All I knew was that he was wounded and until I met Byrne and Duncan the only marriages I'd witnessed were one directional. I thought it was the woman's duty to forgive any transgression and nurture even the most dangerous men.   Thank you Bryne!

Then there's Fanny ~ Byrne's mother ~ who steps into Duncan's life and becomes the mother he needed. The rift between Duncan and his biological mother is never explained because even Byrne didn't know what happened.  But it didn't matter to Fanny.  Duncan as the young man who made her daughter stand taller, dream bigger and fight harder. So she took him in and became his mother.

But Duncan's situation ~ one of needing to replace his mother ~ is the only one of its kind in the book.  For the rest of the characters, including me, other mothering is more revelation than rehabilitation.  I hope the book leaves the readers in the same warm glow.

The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about your one thing...

Day 5: Who are the "Other Mothers?"

Ann-Marie:

When you search variations on the hashtag #TheOtherMother in Twitter you get a hodgepodge of tweets/posts in terms of its meaning, but generally the same reference point. That is, someone not your parent.

You coined the phrase as the book title (along with rememoir) and in my perspective have wrapped its use around both men and women. I can pinpoint several individuals in my lifetime that have and continue to play an "other mother" role in my life. Your comment this week on FaceBook regarding the BBC article "Memories pass between generations" struck home with me... "So if we can inherit the fears of our biological relatives...maybe Bryne Miller's 'womenism' about not being stuck with the family you inherit is more important than we realize." 

I would say very important.

Teresa:

Hopefully soon when you Google "Other Mother" the top search hit will be Bryne Miller's leaping smile on a beautiful cover of "The Other Mother: a rememoir." Right now if you type in "Other Mothers" you come up with a lot of writing around same-sex parenting. But the term goes back much further ~ anthropologists writing about slavery in this country coined the term "fictive kin" for when female slaves were sold off the plantation but their kids weren't. These motherless children were left to be raised by other mothers.

So it turns out there are may ways to define other mothers but you know it when you feel it. They can be that favoirte teacher, a special coach or mentor but for me the key aspect of other mothers is that they are not genetically responsible for you.  They have no biological ties to your identity so they're free to see only who you are or might become.  They don't start out with the deep background on all your successes or failures so they champion your potential without any baggage. When I gave my TEDx talk in Charleston this year I described my other mother ~ Byrne Miller ~ as being able to see right through me.

The cool thing about celebrating the love of other mothers is that we can pay it forward and become other mothers ourselves ~ at any age, for any length of time and whether we have kids of our own or not. It's "other" in the most limitless way possible.

The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about an "other mother" in your life...

Day 4: Reinvention and "The Other Mother"

Ann-Marie:

Resilience and reinvention are inspirational pivots for many of us during the current economy. I suspect the bloggers associated with "The Other Mother" blog tour know a great deal about these topics either directly or indirectly.

I have a tendency to lean my own personal story in the resilience category. One that sheds more light on living with grief and framing hardship as a learning tool. However, what I have learned by rallying through and up from these circumstances is that while one may not necessary effect outward changes, others make a note of a transition to some perceived flipside. Placing what they "see" in a category of transformative reinvention or as Byrne suggests to you "walking into another room." I do believe the common denominator of resilience and reinvention is the recognition that what transpires in one's life is significant, but not all-defining.

The Story of Byrne is a myriad of experiences in this regard. As is your own story Teresa. One realizes this reading the book or watching your "The Wisdom of Quitting" presentation at TEDX Charleston in 2013. 

Teresa:

Byrne Miller definitely knew a thing or two about reinvention. She was a classically trained pianist, but when the Great Depression hit she had to help support her parents by becoming a burlesque dancer on Vaudeville.

It's funny; because of my fanatical training to be an Olympic rhythmic gymnast, I always equated quitting and starting over with failure. One of the most important things Byrne Miller, my other mother, ever taught me was wisdom of quitting. It's the catalyst for reinvention.

She would tell me, "When what is painful can't be fixed, simply close the door behind you and walk into another room. The brain has more chambers than the heart."

In the course of researching her life for my memoir of our relationship, I learned how many times Byrne had to walk into another room.  Her professional modern dance career was cut short by having two daughters, so she reinvented herself as a choreographer.  When she moved to Beaufort and couldn't find enough professional dancers to support a performing company she reinvented the Byrne Miller Dance Theatre to become a presenting company for modern dance instead.

By the time she "collected" me as a daughter, she had another womenism at the ready: "There is not a contract on earth that cannot be rewritten," Here's to that!

The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about your story of reinvention...

Day 3: Provocation and "The Other Mother"

Ann-Marie:

"Provocative" according to Merriam Webster...serving or tending to provoke, excite or stimulate. 

Pretty much describes a recent word string I wrote about holiday activities associated with the month of December: "What's not to love about a month of stealing kisses under mistletoe, spending time in the kitchen making nog and ramping up the naughty or nice meter! And then there are the elves doing everything other than sitting on shelves."

I relished the response by Bryne's husband in Chapter 9 when she promised that she would behave on her tour with The Sara Mildred Strauss Dancers. (Readers will have to grasp that at a time when great hardship befell the country, Bryne was able to secure employment as a dancer that paid well, gave her husband the freedom to pursue writing a novel and support her parents~handsomely paid for wearing next to nothing). He told her "...Be brazen. Be bold. Be burlesque!" It's in this chapter called "Taking Turns" that the reader realizes that to follow their passion (Byrne and Miller) was as much about the individual pursuit as it was celebrating the other's attributes.  Which becomes even more meaningful when the chapter ends with a decision by one of them to relinquish "a turn" to benefit the other.

Passion, bold, and brazen (as well as compassionately human). I do think Byrne and I would have enjoyed each other's company.

Teresa:

Are you kidding? Byrne Miller would have eaten you up ~ she was a snob about language and you're a writer. Major points right away. Plus she claimed to love my cooking and I'm not half the foodie you are. So we're defacto sisters by Bryne.

Provocation was a game to Byrne. she enjoyed, shall we say, surprising people. Personally I'm always attracted to larger-than-life personalities so her most outrageous pronouncements seemed like performances. Remember, I was 22 when she dropped such womenism bombs like "every woman should have a at least one affair. It builds confidence" and "modesty is for the hoi polloi." I didn't even know what that last one meant.

It was only later, when I started to list them all for "The Other Mother: a rememoir" that I realized Bryne's womenisms were an expression of love for her collected daughters. She meant for each of us to live the fullest lives we could and never settle. If a husband or a boyfriend wasn't up to the potential she saw in us, she had no use for them. She knew we could do better but instead of criticizing our choices, like regular mothers do, she'd tell us "mediocrity is distasteful" and "there is no contract on earth that cannot be rewritten."

She did shock me though, when friends threw me a going away party when I left Beaufort for a new career in Washington D.C. She raised her glass of red wine for a toast to the possibilities a big city would offer. Only she said it this way: "Anonymity has its own rewards. You can be trashy and nobody will ever know."

The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about a provocative moment in your life...

Day 1: Crossing Paths with "The Other Mother"

And so it begins...the "10 Days with The Other Mother" blog tour.  Starting today and continuing through December 10th this blog will host a public conversation with author Teresa Bruce that provides readers with an opportunity to gain insight and reflect on Bruce's recently published rememoir "The Other Mother." 

There are several ways you can participate in the conversation:

1. Join the conversation! Enter comments and/or respond to entries in the comments section at the end of each blog entry. The author and blogger will actively monitor and engage in a virtual dialogue during the ten day tour.

2. Share a link! Copy and paste a link to each blog entry on your FaceBook page, your Google+ account, your Twitter feed or cite an entry on Pinterest, Tumblr or your own blog...wherever you find yourself socially networking.

3. Buy the book! The author and blogger will provide a great many reference points over the next ten days but to fully appreciate the beauty of the book one must really dive into the text. Available on Amazon at: The Other Mother

Blog Tour Day 1: Crossing Paths

Ann-Marie: 

I have always marveled at how our lives interweave with the people, places and experiences necessary to propel us in one direction or another. Chance meetings. Serendipity. Work assignments. Blind dates. Coffee shops. Network referrals and the like. Each built around a stated opportunity whose purpose we may or may not be fully aware of in the immediate.

In fact Teresa, our becoming acquainted two years ago at the Beaufort International Film Festival was very much like that. I have always relished "table readings" so when the festival schedule included the opportunity to hear some of Beaufort's local thespians reading the screenplays entered for competition, I was quick to secure a ticket for the occasion. And with that attendance I became acquainted with you. That first encounter, listening to your screen play being read, set in motion an appreciation for your brand of storytelling. Most especially for your knack in bringing to the page the good, bad and sometimes comical way life has a tendency to flow and unfold.

Chapter 8 of "The Other Mother" presents readers with your first encounter with Byrne and Duncan Miller while on assignment with a local public television affiliate. Initially you take a journalistic approach upon meeting the Millers, to design a story of "worthiness and drawing out empathy" for a man with Alzheimers and a wife eager to bring public attention to their plight, by the conclusion of that chapter your approach quickly shifts to an admiration for the reflected love you witnessed in meeting them.

Thus, my volley to you, Teresa on Day 1 in our "10 Days with The Other Mother" conversation starts with our crossing paths at the film festival and you crossing paths with Byrne Miller....

Teresa:

I remember it well...Our paths crossed on the auspicious occasion of the first ever screenplay table read in Beaufort, South Carolina! That was two years before MovieMaker Magazine would name the Beaufort International Film Festival one of the coolest 25 film fests in the country ~ I guess we were BIFF before it was the film world's BFF! I was so nervous and it was great to look out into the audience and see your smiling, exuberant face in the audience. I didn't even know you but I could feel your encouragement and support for the creative process. 

I love it when that happens ~ paths crossling like two dancers on stage at the same time, hooking arms and spinning off in new directions.

I was like that meeting Bryne Miller, the Other Mother in the title of my memoir. I was 22 at the time, a rookie TV reporter at WJWJ-TV in Beaufort, SC and she was an 82 force of nature. I never set out to find an Other Mother but she folded me into her world before I knew what was happening. 

She always said "The family you're born with is not the one you're stuck with" and that was the genesis of a word I invented to describe her pearls of wisdom: womenisms. And now, years later, our dance together has spun off into so many directions. I have a blog called "womenismsm" on wordpress and a whole book worth of chapter headings in "The Other Mother: a rememoir."

What a great position to open the tour with Ann-Marie!

The Other Mother: A Rememoir by Teresa Bruce

Tell us about your experience in crossing paths with people who made an impact on your life...

From hiatus to 10 days with The Other Mother

An extended hiatus from this blog focused on an elder care experience was a conscious choice, one that made the greatest difference to the people right in front of me. Now don't leap into thoughts of the long-term care process here, it was more like connecting before the memory and physical well-being of a parent would make such an endeavor even more difficult than it had already become. Never did I dream I would look up six months later with a more relaxed impression of senior living realizing I was missing the very thing that provided fulfillment to me personally (and on so many levels).

In my initial attempt to re-enter the blogging sphere I watched my heroic "Wednesday HodgePodge" crowd continue their ritual of once weekly tandem entries,  I relished the family news and pulling up recipes from Chef Richard Wilson's newswire, I witnessed "The Goddess Blogs" giving me all sorts of reasons to find romance alive, I read as "Olives & Alzheimers" relayed her own personal journey with a parent suffering from Alzheimers, I swooned to the poetry of James Goertel in Yareah Magazine, I drooled in virtual desire for the food in Travel Bite's worldwide adventures,  I clapped every feature in author Kami Kinard's Nerdy Chicks Rule, I watched "The Outdoor Yogini" blossom in self discovery, I relished the musings and thoughtful appreciation for life in pictures and video from a high school chum David Cate and yet couldn't muster a way to jump back in. Writers block? Maybe. Lack of focus? Maybe. Finding my place in this sphere of words after an absence? Most definitely.

Finally, without even realizing it, an author, wine and food provided the triple shot of enlightenment needed to gear back up confidently. So it is through an RSVP to a local event celebrating a book launch (a book I might add that got an approving nod from Pat Conroy) that I found my comfort zone again. And with that bit of an introduction you are invited to 10 Days with The Other Mother!

10 Days with The Other Mother


When: Begins December 1, 2013 and concludes on December 10, 2013 (then its on to the next blog stop)


Who: Teresa Bruce, author of The Other Mother & SCMornings contributor Ann-Marie Adams


What: An online conversation posted daily for ten days between two "Other Mothers" (Bruce and Adams) sharing wisdom, humor, revelation and womenisms. Expect musings to include Q&A, visual stimulation and expect the unexpected.


Where: Playing in multiple social media outlets near you! Originating here at SCMornings and intended to be shared, reposted, retweeted and favorited. #TheOtherMother (official hashtag) AND You the reader of course, you ARE the "+1" on this multi-day blog tour stop!


How: Mark your calendars to stalk our posts, chime in with your comments or simply tune in because you can in the comfort of your own time and space. 

Note: Engagement by readers each of the ten days nets one (1) lucky contributor a free copy of the book!