Private Story
My Daughters, Now Mothers Themselves...Balancing their Lives and The best of Friends
Summary
Forty-eight years ago I had a daughter who I named Cassandra. Her sister, Alexa came four years later and from the very instant they met they were best friends. And as they grew up, beyond the early years they developed into colorful personalities and always were adoring of each other. Both my girls chose artistic careers. As they went through school they nourished each other and continue to be each other's confidante. And now as mothers themselves the daily interaction of communication between the three of us is simply joyous, sometimes emotional & always a powerful reminder of what we share.
- Tell us more about the photo(s). What stands out to you now, looking back? Is there any additional context you’d like to share with our audience?
- My mother was a well known artsit who lived in NYC, and often took my girls to the Met. Like their grandmother, both my daughters adore museums. My girls had the most magnificent long curly tresses growing up. One was a strong willed brunette, the other a saucy red head. Reflecting on how their personalities complemented each other I see a lot of myself in each of them; but i also see how Cassandra traveled down a more deliberate and academic path than her mother, meeting the challenges of the contemporary art world and becoming a museum curator. Alexa was fueled with a hunger to voyage on an unstructured path, yet strive to be courageous and sometimes complicated in her creative choices, as a writer and director. And as mothers today they are bringing up their sons and daughter with bold and compassionate nurturing; teaching their children to look beyond the horizon and be brave.
- 2. Can you describe what it has been like being a mother? What are the challenges and triumphs, and what would you like readers to know about your experience?
- i had my first child at twenty-five years old in 1974; a world expanding from the peace and love movement into baby boomers with families. I had no knowledge of the responsibility or lifetime commitment I was taking on. I was a young photographer working on a magazine across the country and pushed the envelope not leaving Cassandra at home while I worked. I was fired a year into the magazine job because during my lunch break I breast fed my baby and my editor caught me. She was enraged at my unprofessionalism. Joseph Benti, a CBS anchor and the subject of my interview that day, went to bat for me but to no avail. I learned that I would have to rethink how to work during Cassandra's early years and chose to freelance. It was a time of increased freedoms for women on the job and I, being politcal, chose to begin documenting women's rights, workers rights...etc until I became pregnant with Alexa at 29 years old. At that same time we had to move. We bought a small cabin in Malibu Lake, began a renovation and built a three bedroom home in the small knit community. I quickly found reliable baby sitters but i was not comfortable leaving my preschoolers in the Santa Monica Mountains with a high school student. It was time to find an alternative career, one I could develop at home until Cassandra started school. This was when I started to write. At first I developed a screenplay and then started a local theater company. It wasnt until Alexa was four years old that I combined my work as a writer and a photographer and returned to my work of narrative photography. What truly made a difference to me, back then, was that i was still so young; and my devotion to my daughters did take center stage. I was very lucky because my husband provided all we needed, as a film editor; although he was gone often fourteen to sixteen hours a day. His schedule fluctuated and our young family had to learn to adapt, like all freelance families. This was sometimes challenging, financially, but the lack of structure also allowed us to give our girls amazing experiences; trips abroad, often to New York, as well as being hands on. I marvel that today my daughters are able to be so hands on with their full time jobs. Looking back is a long circuitous road of all the stages of motherhood; education; friendships your child makes and boyfriends your daughters will have. The many years away at school and grad school; or just the need to get away from home and live three thousand miles away, like Alexa did staying in NYC after NYU, for eight years. But throughout I am amazed at the unfolding gift of being a grandmother. Of watching my girls bring up their children and with such ingenuity and grace.
- 3. What does motherhood mean to you?
- Being a mother is an unending birth of giving and receiving with such an abundance of what is life. It is not always smooth sailing. And can be painful when you are confronted with no longer mothering in the way you finally learned to do and maybe never mastered but were getting really good at it until all of a sudden your child is off and leading their own lives. All the firsts, all the falls, all the mistakes, all those monumental decisions, all the triumphs and all the learning. Now it is the deep trusted friendship i am blessed to indulge in everyday. Motherhood has made me humble, forgiving, finding my sense of humor and for me the difficult lesson of learning when to stop mothering!
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