Mom & Me Journals Histories: 1999 - 2001

    You are absolutely right in guessing why I used the word "pornography". My erotica is not pornography to me, it's too genteel for that word, I think, but it is to my mother, and I was writing to you about my mother's concept (and expression) of what I do. Sometimes, I think the reason she prefers the word "pornography" to describe all sexual material is because, having been raised in a staid and stony household (very much unlike the household she and my father created, into which they bore their children and through which they raised their children), I think the word "pornography" captures a bit of the excitement she feels about having a daughter who does what, to her, is a very foreign activity, combined with her inability to even imagine what sexual writing must be like. Considering it to be "pornography" allows her to share in my excitement about it at her own level without actually having to read the stuff. She's a funny woman. Sometimes, I can tell, when she is looking at me, considering me, she is thinking, "I created her?!? She came from me?!? I didn't know I had it in me..."
    Good word to describe her and her life, "complex". She is, indeed, complex, and, as such, is going past that "point of no return" in her life in unusual and eye-opening ways, with much bravery, although she wouldn't consider it bravery, she'd consider it "just living". Which is exactly why I want to make it possible for her to continue as she has. And, you are right that I have a "beautiful relationship" with her. Sometimes it is so rich that I feel sad for my sisters that their lives are beyond having her in their lives so closely except through me.