Mothers, Daughters, and John Steinbeck

I am the kind of girl who calls her mother every day.

My mother reads every single blog post, article and Facebook update I write and thinks I am “absolutely brilliant.” My mother was so intrigued by a cover letter I wrote addressing the impact John Steinbeck’s Harvest Gypsies had on my desire to be a Journalist, she took it upon herself to read the text that inspired me so much. After Harvest Gypsies (a collection of articles about migrant farm workers during the Great Despression) she was inspired to read Grapes of Wrath. And then something amazing happened.

My mother found her own significance and inspiration in the book that so inspired me. I feel deeply connected to her, as if there is still an invisible umbilical cord. My mother was taken aback by the stories of the women in the novel, specifically the section in which a woman explains the nature of women.

She was so inspired she wrote her own poem, discussing the nature of women or rather nature and women. I feel especially inspired by her analysis of a specific scene from Harvest Gypsies. These are themes and lessons my mother has showed me:

Flow of women

“Through driven strength, small beginnings are nurtured.” This is explaining the cycle of strong women nurturing the next generation of strong women.

“The nourished branch out on a new path.” This is the strong women who has been taught by a strong women branching out. She finds her own path through life, her own definition of what a strong women is. The word nourished is used strategically because nurturing is something so often attributed to women.

“Forging ahead, bending when needed, breaking through at any opportunity.” The bending means being flexible with the will of others and continuing to move forward but recognizing that their path is molded along the way by other people. Timing is everything; the aim to to never lose sight of her goals, to grasp onto every opportunity as if it were her only opportunity. She takes nothing for granted, but is grateful for the opportunity.

“To rise and flow ever constant, the progression of life.” A woman is constantly moving forward. Like a river a women rises with opportunity and the movement through life is constant. It never stops.

“If possible, nature’s namesake provides a chance to pool, swelling inward, the lifeline divided into small beginnings.” My mother has nourished me. She’s given me the foundation for finding my definition of what a strong woman is.

She is my beginning.

Taeler Kallmerten, Staff Writer