Recently a
friend describes how she brought her extended clan together for a Night to
Remember party where departed kin were remembered accompanied by scalloped potatoes and ham.
I look over at
her. “You’re the Baba in your family.”
Her blue
eyes grin back at me. “ I know”.
Neither
Ukrainian or a grandmother, she is as much a Baba as one can be. Babas aren’t
necessarily Ukrainian, or grandmothers, or old, or even female. My husband, I must admit, is probably a
better Baba than I am. With roots in the backwoods of Arkansas and the
mountains of Norway, he took up my culture.
His nature is to nurture – cooking, comforting, being there – thinking of
the needs of others without inserting his will (there we differ). I know my mother recognized this in him early
on when she gave one of the last existing copies of the bible of Ukrainian
recipes (Ukrainian Cookery by Savella
Stechishin) to my husband, not me.
Dedicated, no less.
Every race
has its Babas. When we lived in Korea I would watch the Babas in action. The word that comes to mind is Formidable. Not just your kim-chi making Halmoni but judge and
jury in family matters. For me, that’s
too much pressure. And you live with your kids. When we lived in Switzerland I
saw the family matriarchs rule categorically. Swiss women did not get the vote till 1971
because, as the women there clarify, “The man is the head of the household but
the woman is the neck that turns the head”. Seen it in action. Don’t want the job. Prefer my own head.
The trouble
with archetypes is they’re often myths. When
many people think of Babas they see a wrinkled, rosy face enclosed in a huska
(kerchief). Squat and solid, with hands
worn by work and legs bowed by arthritis, they hobble from stove to garden and
back again. Their sphere of influence is paltry, limited to church and family.
Not today. Today Babas are chameleons. Jean jackets and tattoos; power suits and
$200 hair cuts; polyester tummy pants and t-shirts stained with toddlers’ lunch;
white hair and spike heels; sweaty and muscled; clay covered or paint
spattered; birkenstocked and braless; Lulu Lemoned head to toe; wrapped in
bright saris or hidden under burquas.
Some people
are born Babas. You can see them even as
children, clucking and herding, watching and organizing. Babas are also
made. Though I didn’t have a Baba
growing up, I watched the Super Baba, my mom, in action. I also watched hundreds of other women fill
this role, some were aunties, some I met only in a book or a newspaper, some
walking dogs, some I worked or played along side of, some I invented through
the eyes of a child.
The point is
that Baba, Grandma, Kokum, Oma, Bibi, Nonna, Ama, Popo is whoever you choose to
be.
No comments:
Post a Comment