Speaker 1: This is Lei Habib and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: and we tell stories about just about everything here on
Speaker 1: this show, including your story. Send them to our American
Speaker 1: Stories dot com. That's our American Stories dot com. There's
Speaker 1: some of our favorites. Today we have Winter Persapio, an
Speaker 1: author from Texas, bringing us a story from a moment
Speaker 1: of motherhood. She writes essays about motherhood and he's currently
Speaker 1: a humor columnist for her local daily. Here is her story,
Speaker 1: entitled Curls. It takes a full twenty minutes to comb
Speaker 1: through her curls. I sedate the riot of hair with
Speaker 1: henfuls of slick conditioner, and said, just outside the tub
Speaker 1: on her yellow footstool, combing through the long black strands
Speaker 1: that spring back into ringlets after every poll, I never
Speaker 1: imagined I'd have patience for this before I had children.
Speaker 1: When I think back to my life before my daughters arrived,
Speaker 1: I can't remember doing anything quite so methodical as mothering.
Speaker 1: Nothing has ever been as demanding of skills I didn't possess.
Speaker 1: I've never faced so many moments when I was at
Speaker 1: the end of my rope where I was driven to
Speaker 1: shouting in another human being at my own child, only
Speaker 1: to apologize later, much too late, much too little. The
Speaker 1: comb catches in the thick nest of twists and turns,
Speaker 1: and I pull her hair slightly. She rarely protests when
Speaker 1: this happens. Genetics must tie the curly hair gene with
Speaker 1: the tough scalp one. This genetic combination did not include
Speaker 1: the gene that extends graciousness with curious strangers. However, her
Speaker 1: naturally curly hair draws compliments. Everywhere she goes. Strangers come
Speaker 1: up to her with hands extended, trying to touch the
Speaker 1: spirals framing her tiny face and black eyes. Only a
Speaker 1: few get away with it. Most times she warns them
Speaker 1: off with a staunch no touch, her arms crisscrossing her
Speaker 1: head in a protective shield. Still strangers reach for the
Speaker 1: curls in restaurants, on sidewalks, in doctor's offices. I'm lucky
Speaker 1: I can touch them. Every day we sit in the
Speaker 1: quiet bathroom. She's focused on her floating toys, I ununtangling, smoothing.
Speaker 1: I become such a different person since I had children.
Speaker 1: I become quieter, more careful, more aware of small moments.
Speaker 1: I'm acutely aware of the chasm between my friends who
Speaker 1: don't have children, and my friends who do. I've leaped
Speaker 1: the canyon, never sensing the moment my feet were in
Speaker 1: the air, only a few closest friends jumping with us
Speaker 1: as honorary ants and uncles. Now I understand why I
Speaker 1: never saw people once they had their children, why they
Speaker 1: stopped calling, how they disappeared into thin air. I recognize
Speaker 1: the way the strange wild space grew between us with
Speaker 1: every step their children took towards solids, towards school, toward adolescents,
Speaker 1: towards leaving, toward never really being gone. Across the vast chasm,
Speaker 1: I see my childless friends moving on quickly as I
Speaker 1: sit here, Still sit here, time turning in on itself
Speaker 1: so I can see both ends of it, beginnings and endings,
Speaker 1: all wrapping around my fingers. I risk a higher starting
Speaker 1: point on her head, thinking I've worked out most of
Speaker 1: the knots, but it's no good. I'm back to the thicctangle,
Speaker 1: prying the teeth of the comb with it. She turns,
Speaker 1: looking for something. The cloth has slipped back in the tub.
Speaker 1: I hand it to her wordlessly. She takes it without
Speaker 1: a glance and returns to her cups. That need feeling.
Speaker 1: My father, a veteran of many why, always said he
Speaker 1: would never marry a woman who hadn't had children. They
Speaker 1: are too selfish, she said. And I wondered, as a
Speaker 1: single woman in those days, how selfish I was. When
Speaker 1: he married a woman with three young daughters, my stepsisters.
Speaker 1: I wondered if he would be able to share her
Speaker 1: with them. I leaned back for a moment, feeling the
Speaker 1: dull burn in my back, and clean the comb out.
Speaker 1: The fine black hair, slick with the conditioner, but still twisting,
Speaker 1: coats my fingers as I brush them off onto a
Speaker 1: paper towel stretched out, A single curl is long enough
Speaker 1: to reach her waist, yet it will bounce back to
Speaker 1: her shoulder when it's dry. I've never had her haircut,
Speaker 1: nervous that the metal will somehow break the bonds of
Speaker 1: this miracle flowing from her crown. Before they were born,
Speaker 1: I never really noticed children before Now, when I meet
Speaker 1: them as I'm out on my own in an office,
Speaker 1: when someone brings her son in the store, when four
Speaker 1: year olds bounds into my path, I stop purposely. I
Speaker 1: kneel before them, look into their eyes and say hello.
Speaker 1: They smile, usually recognizing some universal quality I've gained, or
Speaker 1: maybe I just look silly crouching like a frog. All
Speaker 1: the tangles are out, and I take great pleasure in
Speaker 1: running the comb through her hair again and again, separating
Speaker 1: strands into perfect spirals. She looks up at me. Ah done, no, never, yes, baby,
Speaker 1: all done, And great job on that piece by faith.
Speaker 1: As always, she did great work here, and a special
Speaker 1: thanks also to Winter Prosapio. She's an author from Texas,
Speaker 1: and my goodness, just what sweet, sweet and precious and
Speaker 1: detailed storytelling. And that is the thing about motherhood and fatherhood.
Speaker 1: It is real details you start to pay attention to
Speaker 1: and patience. Well, that's the skill none of us really have,
Speaker 1: and the skill that gets tested most. I was acutely
Speaker 1: aware of the chasm between friends who had children and
Speaker 1: friends who didn't. And it's true, it's just so different,
Speaker 1: how you have to reorient your life around these people
Speaker 1: of workers, these little ones of yours. Nothing has ever
Speaker 1: been as demanding of skills I didn't possess. People always
Speaker 1: ask me, I'm just not am I ready yet? And
Speaker 1: I always tell young people You're never ready, You're just
Speaker 1: never ready. I didn't have a child, till I was
Speaker 1: almost forty, and I wasn't ready until I was the
Speaker 1: story of Winter Persapio's daughter mother bond and well, fathers
Speaker 1: and sons, and fathers and daughters know these bonds too.
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