Mother’s Day at church is a different story, an as-un-yet-unreconciled story. I am not the only one who thinks sleeping in on Mother’s Day Sunday (more canonized than Easter Sunday in some districts) is the best present one can aspire to. This year I heroically got us all there only half an hour late despite taking Tom to the airport that morning. Callie, struggling with her tights on the living room floor as the clock ticked past the passing of the sacrament and Mom urged (loudly) to hurry, said “Daddy helps us with everything.”

Church was mixed. Lucy cried and refused to go up and sing with the primary , the first of my children to not enjoy that rite of passage. They sang a non-traditional rendition of [Mother] Do You Love Me? with some of the mothers singing the teacher part. I was wrestling a nursing Molly and a crying Lucy so I wasn’t overcome, but it was quite touching.

Several youth speakers talked about how grateful they are for mothers who make Cinderella look like a lazy, grasping slacker. I told Avery that I would be supervising her talk if she were ever called to eulogize me in such a fashion. I’d expect her to say that she appreciated my example in reading late into the night, discussing current events at the dinner table and explaining during homework time that al-gebra comes from the Arabic for restoration. I would like to be better remembered for the emotional support I gave my children than for how many times I swished a wand around the toilet bowl.

(What does it say that the by-far-best youth speaker was the oldest daughter of a single working mother?)

The adult talks were more of the same, and the Bishop’s spiel in Primary, where it was at least mentioned that mothers, in addition to being flogrified housekeepers also play games with and read scriptures to their children. I think I have recommended Blokus here before, but I will again, because it is the first game that both Avery and Callie have beat me at.

Our ward has the tradition of getting substitutes for all the women in Primary and YW so that all the sisters can go to Relief Society for a short lesson, lunch and mingling. The schedule called for a discussion of honesty, which on the face of it has little to do with motherhood. Our teacher (also the R.S. President and the lady who had done lunch and dipped strawberries in chocolate for our after-Sacrament favor) passed out mirrors and asked us if we could look ourselves in the eyes and say that we are honest.

There ensued a silly discussion about how to negotiate tricky social situations without either admitting that someone’s butt looked fat or lying. And then Rebekah asked us to consider whether, when we look in the mirror do we see ourselves as we really are?, and here I was expecting some sort of listing of shortcomings — do I see my double chin? (yes, and the fat creases in my neck), do I see that thing that makes me, half-defiantly, wholly despairingly, whisper in the tiny guilty voice in my head that surely I am going to hell? (yes, I see that, no lecture required).

But she asked if we see ourselves as daughters of God, do we see ourselves as women He loves? Do we see the truth? Are we honest about ourselves, to ourselves?

And I confess, I wasn’t.

I wasn’t very interested. How could I be? I am not any kind of son, let alone a first or second or even twelfth. I’ve held that same distanced, valuable-as-a-historical/religious-record but not of much personal meaning to me in my daily life feeling for almost twenty years. Nothing I learned from a rather more-enlightening professor in college changed my mind about the Old Testament being primarily by men for men.

Then I started going to Sunday School for the first time in years. (I had been busy in other callings during that hour for most of my adult life.) And Tom started a new scripture study program in our home where he reads/skims until he finds a story, and then tells it to us, having Sally read a few important verses here and there. (He asks me if I want to do the preparatory reading some nights; so far I have been almost always passed out on the couch or still cleaning up dinner.)

But I started hearing the stories of the Old Testament. Tom is aware of his role as father to daughters exclusively, so maybe he has been emphasizing the female roles, but it turns out that the Old Testament is really all about women. About their spiritual and physical journey to become mothers. And about their role in nation-building, whether it’s Jael nailing Sisera or the judge and prophetess Deborah, or Delilah who Samson was an idiot to confide in, or the wise woman who saved her city from Joab’s wrath by offering him the head of Sheba (a traitor to King David) thrown over the wall of the city.

And don’t forget Eve (who the Mormon church revere as perhaps the wisest, bravest of them all), and Esther, and Rebekah, who went to the Lord herself about children, who conspired (it seems) with the Lord to bypass Esau for Jacob in the blessing from Isaac.

Some women in the Old Testament are never named, and yet their stories are as archetypal, as symbolic and pointing towards the coming and role of Christ as any of the revered patriarchs’ interactions with their sons. Mary, the mother of Jesus, wasn’t the first woman to know that her Son would be special, different, dedicated to God. What about Sarah, mother of Isaac, and Hannah, mother of Samuel?

What about Moses’s mother, mother of Moses? Actually we know her name, we just never talk about her by name. She was Yocheved — Jochebed in the KJV. Her story, to me, is as captivating, faith-affirming, electrifying as any, and yet we hardly give her a name and do little more than gloss over her story. We spend weeks agonizing in ecstasy over the obedience Abraham showed in his willingness to sacrifice his grown son, and yet mention in passing that, oh yeah, a mother in Israel had to send her infant son down the river. For the good of his people, for the mysterious ways of the Lord.

Perhaps this would all be old news to serious biblical scholars; I was appalled and delighted to realize I could have been calling Moses’s mother by her name all these years. And I wanted to explore her story. I submitted my first attempt to Rixa’s writing contest. You can read it here. I am unsatisfied by it, especially the ending. Someday I will try again. In the meantime, I’ll teach my daughters her name, and her story.

I looked down at myself after waving to her. I was all dressed up for my morning walk, yoga pants stretched over my pregnant bum (yes, I get a pregnant bum) and my old red fleece sweatshirt that was a hand-me-down from Mimi’s husband ten years and nine moves ago. It has holes in it from flying ashes while camping, but it is still my favorite sweatshirt.

The pockets on both sides were weighed down below the hem, sticking out, bouncing on my legs, with a small water bottle and an apple. I had my ugly beanie and funny old-lady mittens on. My face was not as clear as my pregnancy skin often is. Oh, and I was wearing my (again favorite) prescription sunglasses, also ten years old, that are quite unfashionably-shaped, but they are polarized so they give everything a soft rose tint.

And I thought, I can’t wait until I’m 50 and I can wear whatever I want, and do whatever I want, and no one will think anything of the eccentric old lady down the street. (Apologies to my young 50-year old readers.)

Then I realized two things: I already do wear and do what ever I want (obviously, mostly).

And: I am becoming my mother. (hurray!)

—

This post started out as a much-too-long comment on Charlotte’s blog.

It reminded me of other events that I’ve gone to in the past year even though my initial inclination is to stay home with a book even when I’m not gestating. Whenever I do get out and see new things, hear new people, take the opportunity to think differently or more about anything, I feel better, even if the event isn’t overtly “inspirational.”

This is not a stunning insight, I know, but I think I’m a bit of an all-or-nothing thinker when it comes to new things. Tom and I spent years moving to new places — Japan, New York City, Cairo, Florida — and every day in those places was an overload of “new,” a sensory and intellectual feast of “different.” Here in Utah, where I am glad to be settled (at least for now) I forget that there is so much to experience right in this familiar place.

One of my favorite things last year was the Moms Who Make It (MWMI) conference, though I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. “Entrepreneur” has always seemed like a vaguely dirty word to me, from my days idolizing Thoreau to seeing the shady side of my ex-brother-in-law. But MWMI was amazing. Tonight we were having FHE/scripture study with the girls, and discussing Moses 8, and I got choked up explaining to my daughter that we need to keep journals, and this is one reason I blog, so that my life as a woman is recorded, because sometimes the scriptures we have are really lacking when it comes to talking about women’s lives, about our hopes and motives and fears.

Listening to the amazing women who spoke and taught at MWMI, courageous women from different faiths and life circumstances, was awe-inspiring. I don’t throw superlatives around: it really was wonderful. It made me want to work harder in my roles as mother and wife, and also to pursue more diligently those talents and interests I have. And to be grateful, for all that I am and can imagine being in the future. I’m so glad to live in a time and place when we have opportunities, where we can gather in public any time we want without worrying about acid being thrown in our faces or about how we’ll feed our children tonight (though several of the women, who make “entrepreneur” look G-O-O-D, began their businesses as a way to provide).

I don’t know if there’ll be another Moms Who Make It conference, but if you get the chance to attend something organized by Quinn Curtis, go for it! (I was also especially impressed with Raw Melissa, Cari Greer,and Pam Baumeister.)

Anyway. That’s old history, but it’s why I’m excited about the Wasatch Woman of the Year lunch this Friday. It’s the kind of thing that I’m initially inclined to roll my eyes about or feel awkward about playing dress-up to attend (since I still usually feel like a little kid pretending to be grown up, especially around such accomplished women). It also takes some negotiating to leave the kids in the middle of the day; I don’t ask my husband to come home early from work unless it’s really important.

And this — celebrating women who are great mothers, great leaders in our community, great wives and sisters and daughters (and hopefully being inspired to be the same myself) — is important. You can come too (I think they even let men in ).