Mother Wit
Together for the holidays at home in Calais, Vermont.
BY MARY ALICE PROFFITT
In anticipating the upcoming holiday season, I recognize there may be challenges for many in our society as we get together at the family dinner table over turkey, stuffing and potentially fraught post-election conversation. I am reminded of my journey away from my family and then back to it—the journey I write about in my upcoming book, “An Archive of Home.” In this devotional literary exercise I conclude my story by connecting my personal journey to this present cultural moment: one of loneliness, isolation and estrangement from family, home and community. And I share some of the wisdom I’ve acquired over the course of my last eighteen years as a mother to my three teenage children.
This special wisdom is called mother wit, a kind of street smarts, common sense and, some might say, the wisdom of the divine feminine. It’s a practical, relational wisdom that is foundational to the principles of good etiquette: consideration, respect and honesty. It’s the connection to our collective grandmothers, innately woven into the fabric of our softer sides, through stories, anecdotes and lessons passed down through generations. And by the way, this wisdom is not reserved for mothers exclusively; it is available to all of us, all the time. This natural intelligence is apparent when we lean into our relational power and humanize each other, working through conflict to try to heal misunderstanding and distrust. Mother wit wisdom is ancient and it’s waiting for us, laying dormant within us as individuals and a collective whole. All we have to do to access it is slow down, turn off the noise, pause the devices and listen. It’s classic and never goes out of style no matter what’s trending on our social media feeds or popping up through an AI algorithm in our Google searches. Today we need this mother wit more than ever before, and it’s calling us—even if we’re dreading it—back to our Thanksgiving dinner tables.
“This special wisdom is called mother wit, a kind of street smarts, common sense and, some may say, the wisdom of the divine feminine. ”
Looking back at a time in my life when I lost this wisdom, I’m taken to October 1997 when I was 17 years old and a senior in high school. My beloved sister Rachel, six years older than me, had thrown herself in front of a train and ended her life. She had been struggling with schizophrenia for years, and had decided that this course of action was better for her and those she loved than continuing to live inside the agony and torment of mental illness. My life changed dramatically after Rachel’s death. From others’ perspectives I may have appeared to be the same person, but inside I had lost the basics of my bearings: my common sense and a belief in faith, goodness and hope.
My sister Rachel before her schizophrenia set in walking with my little brother Daniel at my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration in Atlanta.
I also had lost my sense of belonging to family and tradition. A Thanksgiving dinner became just another reminder of Rachel and her empty seat at the table. My heart—a heart that had been full and alive as a happy, bright, radiant and empathetic child—became empty. I lost faith in God and I lost faith in the simplicity of human connection; I feared that by loving deeply again I would be hurt beyond what I could bear. So I shifted my belief into causes that I deemed important; I found meaning in crusading for justice, which allowed me to avoid the pain and loss that I knew would inevitably accompany deep love. But this newfound meaning kept me separate from anything or anyone who I deemed on the wrong side of my adopted values.
Not only did I not want to go to Thanksgiving dinner with my family, I became distrustful of many other societal traditions as well. This set me off on a journey of diligent activism, spiritual adventures and a life of what religious scholars now call SPNR (spiritual but not religious). I became a seeker, living in communes, ashrams and in the wilderness for long solo trips. I leaned into learning survival skills and began building a life for myself where, even in the company of others, I chose to go it alone. I became cynical about my religious upbringing and family traditions. I believed that power came from forces outside of myself and my own inner knowing, so I set off looking for it in far off places; looking for something to fill the hole I felt inside me.
“I deemed Thanksgiving Dinner insignificant when compared with the victims of the wars in the Middle East, those affected by climate change & racism, and all the other big important problems I wanted to help solve.”
Around the age of twenty, I began my own tradition of climbing one big mountain every Thanksgiving day and fasting intentionally on this holiday in order to align myself with the outcasts of society—the poor, the homeless and others suffering from oppression. I would sit in meditation on top of the mountain and think of these oppressed people and Rachel, who had spent years in and out of homeless shelters, jail and the state mental institution, never settled at home even though she had a loving family always waiting for her. Eating a lavish meal felt hypocritical to me and I justified my rejection of this tradition by telling myself that truth existed outside of these societal norms, the outdated rituals and the traditional wisdom of my mother and grandmother.
Summiting Mt. Katahdin on October 13, 2000 after my five month solo hike from Georgia to Maine on The Appalachian Trail.
I didn’t want to be at a table with people who disagreed with me and my political views because I believed myself to be virtuous and right. I deemed Thanksgiving Dinner insignificant when compared with the victims of the wars in the Middle East, those affected by climate change & racism, and all the other big important problems I wanted to help solve.
After I gave birth to my first child, my heart started to change. I became a mother. And slowly, through the years of raising him and his sisters, my heart began to fill with love again. Something ancient began happening through me. Year by year, as these babies grew into themselves, I saw my life in perspective. The simple, relational things between just a few people began to add up to something more powerful than any big changes I had ever dreamed of affecting. Today when my three kids are gathered around the piano singing Beatles tunes and dancing with their bohemian-style thrift store outfits, or sitting for hours quietly focused on reading a long book of non-fiction, I notice how much they remind me of Rachel in the years before she became sick. She was gentle, deeply soulful, spiritual and creative. She saw straight through artificial things—never buying into the trivialities of a material world or its trappings. The love I thought I had lost was transitioned into me loving my children, and this love healed me.
Thanksgiving dinner 2017 back home in the mountains of North Carolina with my family.
Over the years, my children brought me back to my family. And after my mother Sally became sick with cancer, the kids and I reconnected at the family table, heading back to the North Carolina mountains to share in the tradition of preparing Thanksgiving dinner with my other five siblings, their spouses, my parents, friends and neighbors. No longer did I feel isolated or alone. Instead, my spiritual journey of reconciliation with my family allowed me to see our time together as an unimaginable blessing. I could see each and every person alongside me as a miracle of life, uniquely beautiful in their individuality and gifts.
“The simple, relational things between just a few people began to add up to something more powerful than any big changes I had ever dreamed of affecting. ”
I’m thankful that my views on Thanksgiving, family and the importance of being together have changed. This year, our greater family, separated by many time zones from Scotland to California, will likely hold our weekly family zoom and reconnect over who cooked what and which friends and neighbors joined in for the meal. We don’t agree on everything but we are committed to loving each other. Neither current affairs nor politics will keep me from observing Thanksgiving with a sense of wonder and awe; being present in the moment and in my life.
As I have matured through many pivotal life moments like burying my mother and watching all three kids grow taller than me, I’m finding that the way I feel about my family, about others, is really just a reflection of how I’m doing. And these days, I’m grateful for my awareness of the impermanence of my life and how interconnected it is to all those around me. If I zoom out to reflect on the big picture this Thanksgiving, I’m able to see what really matters beyond the political moment—friends, family and the simplicity of our human connection. Rachel’s short life was a gift that has taught me not to take mine for granted.
As you gather together this holiday with friends or family or take the day to serve your neighbors in need, I hope that time stops for you as well. I hope that you can take a balcony view of life and ask yourself: what really matters? I hope that you are reminded that the person in front of you, regardless of difference, is ultimately just a human and that being a human is sometimes just plain old good enough.
Join me in checking in with yourself and being self-reflective enough to ask, How am I doing? What am I bringing to this room and space? Am I being mindful, open, curious, and kind—slowing down enough to think before I respond? Am I really listening or am I running a story in my head and making assumptions about what my conversation partners are thinking? And am I taking my time together with those in this room for granted, worrying about changing their minds, controlling the narrative and fretting about the future, instead of appreciating our time for what it is—an opportunity to reconnect and practice the simple, beautiful art of human connection for its own sake?
“Sometimes the hardest things in life can be resolved if we remember that, regardless of our differences, we are still actually better together than alone, isolated, estranged and, heaven forbid, right. ”
Sometimes the hardest things in life can be resolved if we remember that regardless of our differences— even in times of seemingly opposite worldviews with philosophical orientations that appear irreconcilable— we are still actually better together than alone, isolated, estranged and, heaven forbid, right.
I should know: I’ve tried both paths…
And that’s some mother wit for all of us.
Yours truly,
